Shion & Difficulty Mechanics? (Spoilers?)

[Galvanized Dreamer]

I was looking at the Fusion menu, and noticed I could get Shion. I won't elaborate too much for spoilers, but her abilities seem to be a direct counter to fundamental gameplay mechanics.
So I ask, is she a crutch character for people struggling with game difficulty, or am I supposed to be able to get her within 3 hours of play, and it technically be balanced?
What I mean by crutch is a character something like Desgaia's Pleinair in the PC version specifically, where you get her at the very beginning of the game, when previous versions of the game had her as a pseudo-secret character. Thus, the early game was not particularly balanced for you to have her from the get go.

If it helps in educating a layman such as myself, this is actually my first SMT-like game. Last game even close to this genre I played in earnest was Pokemon Platinum, and that's not really close (I also was a dumb kid that go their Blastoise to level 56, without the badges to command it).

Edit: Perfect example of my unfamiliarity with mechanics: I didn't actually check if I could even do what I was thinking to do. That pretty much answers my question, but if you guys have anything else of relevance, I would appreciate it.

[kerorara]

it's lv.40, which means you can't fuse her before you reach that level, in early game.
maybe after some playing i can get an upgrade which make me available to fuse sleepers having higher level.

[BriTankie]

I wonder what exactly is wrong with her?
In SMT, you can sometime cheese the game by having your STR max out, knowing Concentrate skill and use some good physical attack skill.
I remember a few demons with null/resist all magic attacks on my playhtroughs of SMT.
Not sure if it's possible here, because I can't remember resist skills, but in SMT it's possible to create MC/Demon with NULL/REFLECT all skills via skill transfer.
For example, you can exploit one SMT with MAG build and Drain HP skill, which was able to suck like 1-2k HP from the final boss per turn, which is quite something.

Basically, if you don't know SMT, sure, some stuff will be weird. However, if you know SMT, you know these games may be cheesed with the good old "use buffs" strategy and further mock enemies.

[Galvanized Dreamer]

Bri:
My first problem was thinking I could get her at level 10, which I realized was inaccurate upon experimentation, and was clarified by the gentleman above.
Mostly, her abilities just outright remove debuffs from you and buffs from your enemies. Even if they are SP abilities (which I need to check), that still seems extremely crippling for any opponent, and nullifies an entire gameplay mechanic in a sense.
But, SMT games are often seemingly balanced around this inherent unfairness, in both directions, so it is likely just my lack of familiarity on my part causing issue. I remember when Dark Souls first came out, people said that it was so hard, that any dirty trick, glitch, or exploit was justified. So maybe that's closer to the intent here.

[Scrub Marchioness]

Originally posted by BriTankie:

I wonder what exactly is wrong with her?
In SMT, you can sometime cheese the game by having your STR max out, knowing Concentrate skill and use some good physical attack skill.
I remember a few demons with null/resist all magic attacks on my playhtroughs of SMT.
Not sure if it's possible here, because I can't remember resist skills, but in SMT it's possible to create MC/Demon with NULL/REFLECT all skills via skill transfer.
For example, you can exploit one SMT with MAG build and Drain HP skill, which was able to suck like 1-2k HP from the final boss per turn, which is quite something.

Basically, if you don't know SMT, sure, some stuff will be weird. However, if you know SMT, you know these games may be cheesed with the good old "use buffs" strategy and further mock enemies.

There are no Null/Refl passives in this game, though there are reflect phys/mag skills. No character has an affinity that can reflect anything, just null or absorb. There's also no taunt skill, but Cover lets you tank any hits meant for whoever you chose. (An unique skill lets you protect everyone, which functionally makes it a taunt skill.)

@OP

Oh yeah Shion super's busted thanks to having the good fortune to have extremely bad luck. (By level 99, she has a whopping TWO luck.) For Sumireko/the MC, having luck as your dump stat (i.e Not investing a single point in it in favor of any other stat.) is a poor idea as not only is it the only stat that'll boost your gun's damage, but your item drop + status ailment inflictment chance suffers, you won't do as many crits which is one of the few ways to power your smartphone skills, the Hijack skip grimoire relies on having a high luck stat to get consistent results, and overall your damage will suffer as luck provides a bonus to any and all attacks.

However, since Shion ISN'T the MC, she gets to graze a good chunk of the downsides of having poor luck. Her damage output may suffer a bit from the lack of crits, but thanks to having 97 stat points to work with, she ends up allocating them relatively equally. Meaning her high stats everywhere makes up for the lack of luck. Really, the only major downside is that she won't do well as a status ailment inflicter but as XCOM has proved time and time again, a 0.01% chance of hitting is merely improbable, not impossible. Maybe because she's so unlucky it loops around to make her the goddess of fortune and prosperity, but she's landed several clutch stuns in my playthrough. Pretty sure that's not an actual gameplay mechanic but it's funnier to pretend it is.

Anywho, status ailments are neat but not something you can really rely on (Confusion+Blind still has a chance of hitting you, also it's not like they can whiff healing, Puppet can only be inflicted with an unique skill, Sleep stops working the moment you hit them, frankly Stun is the best as it can be inflicted with any lightning/Azani attack with Azani Amp. It slows enemies, has a chance of preventing actions, and above all else, doesn't go away if you hit them.) so what you end up with is a character that can fulfill any role and excel.

Despite being a malnourished bag of bones, she makes for an excellent tank, what with being immune to two of the most common attack types. (Pierce + Mind.) She may be weak to lightning and wind but frankly, those attacks are rather uncommon. The game is unbalanced in that regard as most enemies will hit you with Pierce, Fire, Fire, Mind, Fire, and Fire again with Lightning + Wind making the occasional appearance and Ice only shows up enough to be credited with a speaking role.

More importantly, unlike most of the tanks, she's actually fast. This doesn't matter too much as Cover, like Quick Attack, is a priority move so usually it'll go first. Usually. If an enemy also has a priority move, well, odds are likely your tank will be covering for a corpse. Not only is she quick enough to out prioritize speedsters, it also allows her to use reflect skills which only has a slight boost to priority. Any other tank attempting to do the same will only end up reflecting on their poor choice of stat allocation.

The only characters that have dump stats similar to her is Okina who in exchange for having 1 AGI/Agility (She's in a wheelchair whaddoya expect.) has high stats everywhere else with a preference for Luck essentially making her a reverse Shion. Zanmu sort of counts as she puts most of her points into defense stats but the rest aren't as horribly neglected to the extent of Shion and Okina. As AGI determines turn order, having low AGI makes one very inflexible build wise so really, having terrible luck isn't the worst thing ever.

All in all, Shion is a total sweetheart who will make for a very powerful addition to your team in (nearly) any role you choose!

...

Oh, you were referring to something else entirely. In that case no, she's not busted. If a game has a mechanic allowing for buffs/debuffs, then it's near guaranteed there'll be a skill that'll clear them. I mean, even in Pokemon there's Haze which essentially resets the playing field back to neutral. The only character that can do that here is Eiki with her unique skill.

It's not overpowered, otherwise why would it be something purchasable that you can carry up to 99 of? Stat changes is one of the many things this game and the SMT series in general is designed around. Enemies can remove your buffs, clear their debuffs, swap their stat changes with yours if advantageous, reverse all stat changes... about the only thing they can't do with it is figure out why kids love cinnamon toast crunch and even then I hear they're getting close to cracking that case!

Bosses towards the latter half of the game will have some way of countering buffs/debuffs (Though one boss, intentionally or not, is too foolhardy to consider debuffing you.) that in turn you can exploit to force them into a dilemma. Do they waste their turn clearing buff/debuffs or press the attack in their weakened state? Some will immediately remove it, others will wait until enough of them stack to take action. Either way, you profit as any turn spent not attacking you is another turn survived.

So no, stat manipulation is accounted for and balanced accordingly. Nearly everything the enemies can do to you, you can do the same to them so things are fair for the most part. The final + post-game boss have more moves than you can legally have (That you can't see in their stat screen.) and the latter has an unique skill that only they can use. Tho TBF, it would be an "I Win" button in the hands of a player. Those quibbles aside, this game isn't unfair at all.

You want unfair? Look up on Youtube. "SMT G*ddamn" (No asterisk.) Tl;dw: Imagine fighting a genie that has the power to grant themselves more wishes with zero downside. Bit of hyperbole there as that boss can be countered with evasion buffs but just sayin', things could be worse. If Sanae's unique skill actually gave her an entire team an extra turn instead of just letting them repeat their action once, then there could've been...shenanigans.

[Galvanized Dreamer]

Originally posted by Scrub Marchioness:

*snip*

Friggin' nice. Thanks for the info, legit.