The Sogne fight is bloody terrible

[s_teamboatwillie]

but I suppose it does expose the weakness of every Persona/SMT-style combat system, ever. Which is Pokemon rock/paper/scissors, but just much worse

switch on AI combat and watch it use single-target frostburn heals while getting full-party hit by the frost breath once or twice EVERY TURN. 95% of single target buffs/debuffs/heals are a complete joke

I got the idea of what to do. Take half it's health turn 1 with fire attacks, then switch out every caster because now it's spell-immune. Just cast one spell at the end of each turn so she sets up the spell immunity again. Now the issue is that your whole party is permanently fully debuffed for the rest of the fight, and you can only damage it with physical attacks. And you got use a group that doesn't get hit for any weakness by most attacks, or you risk getting straight up 1-shot whenever the AI feels like it. From what I can tell, that means mostly everyone on warrior

here's the funny thing - they placed the fight in such a way that you can't really prepare for it, grind levels classes or whatever. If you bring an underdeveloped party, I think you might actually have to reload an older save and/or lower difficults

I wonder how this got past testing

[HRHV87]

They aren't really gimmicky, they are just straight up pump and unload fights similar to other megaten fights. They are not meant to be long, drawn out fights, you just max out your turns with fakers roguery, buff up, charge and unload your hardest hitting affinity ignoring ability, at that point it should be bullet barrage. They literally die in 1, 2 turns tops and you don't have to sit down and watch them use dragons cry and use a million abilities.

It's obvious because a few of them, including the red dragon have time based group-wipe mechanics, so if you drag it out, they'll straight up delete your party,

Metaphor really left out the REAL gimmicky type of fights or fights that can be, quite literally, RNG if you beat them or not or that could suddenly soft lock you into unwinable scenarios.

[Bake]

The item that dispels Makarakarn didn't work against him. Which makes sense since Makarakarn reflects elements back, not null them.
I didn't bother reloading to try other barrier negating skills cause I'm too lazy, so I just bruteforced it by using an element which he nulls, then I wailed on him with Fire.

The most ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ part of the fight is his Roar aoe debilitate thing, but luckily, I had the insight to buy dekunda items in the shop beforehand cause I know how useful Dekunda is from past games.

[TheVeng]

Fight was annoying as hell. But the fairy needed to shut the ♥♥♥♥ up! Yes i know they aren’t going to hit as hard!

[borizb]

Originally posted by Bake:

The item that dispels Makarakarn didn't work against him. Which makes sense since Makarakarn reflects elements back, not null them.
I didn't bother reloading to try other barrier negating skills cause I'm too lazy, so I just bruteforced it by using an element which he nulls, then I wailed on him with Fire.

The most ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ part of the fight is his Roar aoe debilitate thing, but luckily, I had the insight to buy dekunda items in the shop beforehand cause I know how useful Dekunda is from past games.

Thats exactly how i did it. Remove the barrier with any spell, then fire skill + fire skill and with the 2 press turns generated heal or any -kaja/kunda spell according to the situation. It was long and annoying, but not that hard. I never bothered with -karn or their break spells in any Atlus game. You just repel anything and rarely do much damage with it (or in case of Elemental spells. often heal the caster), all while using a lot of MP or rare / expensive items. I call bs

[The big fat monkey]

This battle is poorly designed to me, especially since you have no idea what you are getting into. The fact that it spam the roar that debuffs the ♥♥♥♥ out of the party to start off. And the dumb anti magic protecting bullsheit that i had to waste 2 turns removing cause i didnt bring the exact line up to a blind fight. Luckly next time i try this i have a fully lvl commander, and plenty of fire spells.

But i still dont condone this boss design too much. I grinded it down, and learnt online that theres a second phase as well. All my motivation was lost there as i had removed almost all health with not much mp left.

Aditionally the 2nd part is just as bad. It spams the damn area of effect attacks, buffs itself to heaven and hell, and debuffs the party way too reliably still. And my party members are all weak to its attacks when its the only archetypes that has fire attacks i posses.
This fight has killed all my motivation to continue as i have to sit through this slop of a ♥♥♥♥ design battle. Im gonna do it on easy now, cause this terrible.

[Marigold]

Yeah this fight was atrocious lol. Without Makarakarn this ♥♥♥♥ was unwinnable. Very very aids and even more aids that this fight is after a FORCED story sequence so you can't backtrack you are stuck until you beat it.

[Takwin]

It was one of the worst designed fights relative to our knowledge of it and ability to prepare for it, that I’ve ever seen. I’m too old and life is too short. I don’t mess with this ♥♥♥♥ anymore. Just lowered the difficulty, got past it, upped it after. But it made me rethink these types of games, like Persona 4 and 5. I just absolutely hate having my time wasted. No one could have possibly thought that was fair or fun. It wasn’t.

[a passerby]

For those having problems with this, just run a Magic Knight and use Magic Guard. Sogne loses 2 turn icons whenever you block icy breath. I'm surprised no one out there seems to be mentioning this.

So unleash all your hardest hitting fire spells until quartz wall gets put up, then work on dealing almighty damage. Re-apply Magic Guard as necessary. When Rella's down, you've basically won. Perfectly beatable boss even on hard mode.