Quick leveling without DLCs (Real and True)

A way to level up if you don't want to swap difficulties and how to make most boss battles easier by being overleveled.

Unless you do want to swap difficulties and just cheese level ups even faster.

Kusi Mitamas (Silver/Grey Mitama) Gospels and when to use them

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Kushi Mitamas are little silly guys that you can find around via the navigator or in static location. If you beat them up, you get gospels which is +1 level to Nahobino.

I typically save gospels for the end game because levels 80-99 can be fairly annoying to get and so simply just having them for the end game is my recommendation as the final grinds will be in the final dungeon.

Map	Location
Minato	Far west from the Tokyo Tower Leyline past the tsuchigumo opposite from the mermaids lake. Head further south near the demon statue go up the highway and past Zhuque birds. In a broken building on the right side a Kushi Mitama is there.
Minato (End Game)	From either Egypt leyline its on the far west side of the bridge on the driving roads with the Seth. I've only seen this one spawn once. In both versions I have never seen this one respawn but the other Mitamas do respawn and because they're multiple encounters 2+ its great.
Shinagawa	Tennozu Isle Leyline, in the northwest of a collapsed/broken building building near the highway and Aogami Essence. The Mitama has to be facing away for you to approach it or he will run away.
Chiyoda (Canon of Creation Only)	Akihabara Leyline, head across the bridge and drop down until you reach the northeast corner. Climb up the red blocks and follow the path southwest. On the roof a Kushi Mitama should be visible nearby. Parallel to the Kunitsu-gami area/Shrine.
Shinjuku (Canon of Vengeance Only)	Kabukicho Leyline, head east past the vending machine. At the first intersection head right (south). You will be in Shinjuku 3rd block now, keep heading south until you hit a broken building. Jump on top of the broken building, and on the right (west) theres another broken building the Kushi mitama spawns here.
Taito/Ueno	Ueno Park Leyline, south of Bishamonten and between the Ueno park leyline and the metro railway to the east (Uguisudani), The Kushi Mitama will be hiding among trees.

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Leveling

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Leveling was fairly broken in the original. You see if you grab two demons of the same race and fuse them you get an elemental. Elementals allow you to fuse up and down a race tree like a jack frost into a pixie or Jack frost into the next fairy just another convenient note of info. Elementals are the earliest way to level up using Magatsuhi Luck, you get a lot of money as well to spend on items or spam reverse fusions compendium/special fusions. Early on Magatsuhi demons are big risks on hard mode, but if you can end on with Magatsuhi Luck big returns.

Note: the fusions for the elementals below may result in a demon higher than your current level. In the beginning at least. The elemental talisman is received by gustave after finding 10 miman

• Two Yoma(s) at Level 10 Agathion and Mandrake.
  
• Two Haunt(s) at Level 12 Obariyon and Preta
  
• Two Jaki(s) at Level 11 Turdak and Gremlin
  
• Two Brute(s) at Level 11 Daemon and Azumi

Disclaimer: With magatsuhi luck you generally want to punch up, but you lose out on crits. It is a risky system and you should test the waters to find the comfortable zone where you can end the battle with the luck skill active.

Alternatively later on you can get the Genma talisman which has the same effect this requires locating 100 miman at least and given by Gustave.

Disclaimer: Getting the Genma talisman isn't possible by Shinagawa because the final few miman in Shinagawa are stuck behind the Amanozako quest area later on in the game. It is possible by Shinjuku or Chiyoda/Ginza respectively.

As soon as Riberama becomes available you should be spamming Riberama and Magatsuhi luck and punching enemies levels above you. This is a risky leveling method, but when another wave appears this adds a multiplier with money and exp. This can usually go up to 3 encounters with one. Ideally, you will want to use luck at the end of encounter 2, but if encounter 3 shows up, you will have to end with Luck active there. As a nice note, Magatsuhi skills do carry over to each wave. Same with buffs unless they were about to end, you can tell by the Magatsuhi skill active icon. Riberama + Magatsuhi Luck spams become about 5x exp or 7x exp if i recall correctly.

Riberama does work in dungeons, albeit a bit more oddly. It seems to only work in encounters where theres another demon near the enemy. Say if there were 4 Nue chilling in a spot, you have riberama active, it seems riberama has a chance to pull other Nue in. So do encounters where demons are next to each other in dungeons. In the final dungeon, I usually fight the Chi you doubles on the 3rd floor.

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When to use demon statues

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In my honest opinion, your goal should be to level up to a certain point when punching up isn't really giving great returns anymore. At times this is at level or 2 levels below the last boss in the map. Use grimoires to catch your demons up, and then use the statues to overlevel your demons. The demons will become the main source of damage generally as they are overleveled unless you have access to all the pleromas.

At the final dungeon this is typically where you pop the gospels you saved to hit cap. In other words, save statues to put the demons levels above your level. once you hit cap the statues are somewhat worthless unless you intend to do NG+ and start fusing your whole stock kit for superbosses.

On that note, you can always just use grimoires to catch demons up. NG+ also refreshes Demon Haunts convos with whom you fuse and demons, you can use the statues with underleveled demons to bring them up and if you're lucky it may trigger a stat boost on your other demons. So there a few things to consider there.

While it is a lot harder, using Luck on Boss fights can be particularly insane if you land it. Good money and good exp but Riberama abuse won't work on bosses.

Atlus bring SMT 1, 2, SJ, and 4

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Atlus just bring the other games please.

[Comatose Dolphin]

Additionally, with the new demon passives and new Magatsuhi skills you can gain extra turns by doing certain actions in battle. You can learn these actions reading the passive at the top of their status page or reviewing their skills at the bottom. Some bonuses require that you play bad on purpose, evade enemy attacks, or exhaust the magatsuhi gauge to gain an extra turn, or with Magatsuhi Momentum (a skill on some demons) eliminate enemies in battle to gain extra turns for each number of enemies killed.

[Comatose Dolphin]

Additionally, the number of icons can be dynamic in battle. Meaning if a party member dies you can lose icons. But all these rules apply to both sides of the battle, everything you get for advantages and disadvantages the enemy has the same rules as well.

Your objective in "Press Turn" would to be make sure you go as much as you can, while the enemy cannot really go at all or has less opportunities to. You would achieve this by using Buffs These skills are noted by the -Kaja suffix or Debuffs which are noted by the -Kunda Suffix, which can increase your chances of survival or buff using Sukukaja and Sukunda to make dodging/evading enemy attacks more likely. Alternatively, blocking or absorbing enemy skills (via changing your resistances or using demons with resistances that block enemy skills) can make them lose turns against you. Aside from punishing the enemy, you want exploit their weaknesses and doing crit damage to have turns refunded so you have more time to attack.

[Comatose Dolphin]

In the "Press Turn" foundation, your turns are indicated on the top right and depending on the number of party members. if you hit a weakness, land a crit, or pass a turn, half a turn is refunded to you. This causes the some of the icons on the top right to flash and for the most part you can do everything as you would on a non-flashing turn though you may want to consider not passing since a turn isn't refunded when the icons are flashing. Now there are punishments if you perform bad, if you miss or your attack gets blocked you lose 2 icons during your turn. If your attack is absorbed you lose all icons meaning your turn is skipped completely.

[Comatose Dolphin]

@Karsk Magatsuhi Skills are like the critical skill when the red bar is charged. Magatsuhi Luck is the red bar skill for Elemental and Genma demons, their race is shown in their page status or while fusing.

"Punching up" means fighting enemies levels above you since there are diminishing returns if you fight enemies at or below your level and you can try to get around those EXP losses by using the multipliers from Magatsuhi Luck which multiplies EXP and Money if you end the battle on the turn while the skill is active.

Essences are used in the World of Shadows and you can do a few things with them. For the main character you can change your affinities (your resistances and weaknesses) or Skills (inheriting skills from the demon essence). As opposed to if you use it for your demons which can only inherit skills from the demon essence.

[Karsk]

What is magatsuhi luck? What does punching up mean? I've never played smt before and I'm really lost on hard mode. I can't get very far and most enemies kick my ass. I dont know what essences are or how they work or even where to begin.

[JakeTM]

thank you!