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If you’ve played a Persona game before, you may be expecting to bump into The Reaper at some point throughout your adventure, andPersona 3 Portabledefinitely doesn’t disappoint. Debuting in P3, this is a famously-difficult battle, as your foe is as strong as can be and knows just about any attack you can think of.
RELATED:Persona 3 Portable: Combat Tips
That said, defeating The Reaper is not impossible, and in fact, doing so leads to some pretty sweet bonus levels in Tartarus. If you need some help taking on the famously tough Reaper fight in Persona 3 Portable, you’ve come to the right guide.
While we focus on combat, beware of any stray spoilers for the plot of Persona 3 Portable in our guides!
How To Spawn The Reaper
Thankfully, for as tough as thisoptional mini-bosscan be, he’s not that difficult to summon – even on accident.
To make The Reaper spawn, simplystay on one floor of Tartarusfor a while. The time needed to make The Reaper spawn in P3P can range greatly depending on the size of your current floor, withlarger floors taking more time.
However, outside of teleportation floors, The Reaper canspawn on almost any floor of Tartarus. This means that, unless you’re planning to fight him,don’t stay on one floor for too long.
How To Know When The Reaper Spawns
Mitsuru or Fuukawill fire a warning shot on the navigation channel, depending on who is guiding you at the time, warning you thatthey sense Deathapproaching.
After this warning, you and the team haveroughly 30 secondsto get out of there before The Reaper spawns in. Your nav person willping you a second time about Death, and when you hear therattling of chainsafter their second message, it means thatThe Reaper has spawned.
While you cannot slow his arrival outside not spending too much time on any given floor of Tartarus, there are things you may do tomake The Reaper spawn faster.
Therewardson the cursed cards in Shuffle Time will often behigher than what’s normally availablein that area, to tempt you into choosing it.
Picking a cursed carddoesn’t immediately spawn The Reaper,but simplyspeeds his spawn time. If you think you may get away quick enough or are ready to fight, the cards lead to plenty of extra cash and weapons!
When you hear the sound of chains, The Reaper is on his way. If you’re not ready to fight him, though, you canleave the floor to despawn The Reaper.
However,if your party is split upand hecatches someoneas you’re trying to leave, they’ll be caught off guard androped intobattle.
You can eitherjoin the fightto try to save them oruse the time that The Reaper is distracted to leavethe flooryourself.
If you leave the party member behind, they’ll be back at the entrance to Tartarus again the next time you go down there as if they’d been fighting an ordinary shadow.
Wait To Fight The Reaper Until Late-Game
While youcantrigger The Reaper’s arrival within any block of Tartarus, it doesn’t mean that youshould. We can’t stress enough how muchwe recommend waiting to fight him.
The Reaper, regardless of where he’s encountered in Tartarus, is aLv. 99 shadow. He knows theheaviest versions of every elemental attack,he’s gotElement Break spellsto negate your party’s strengths, multipleinsta-kill moves, and5,000 HPyou need to deplete before he falls himself.
Even with properly powered teammates, you’ll find that most of your offensive moves amount to chip damage. That’s becauseThe Reaper is strong to every element that he doesn’t totally nullify.
That’s exceptAlmighty, to which he has a regular weakness.
However, these strengths can be negated withyour own Element Break spells. Casting them on The Reaper works like any other shadow, allowing you to hit that element for normal damage instead.
Because of all this, we recommendwaiting until your party members are properly leveled. If they’re too far belowroughly Lv. 70, it may be best to skip the fight altogether until you’re strong enough.
Defeating him will unlock an achievement/trophy, called"The Reaper Becomes The Reaped."
However, if you’re looking to fight The Reaper as part of one of theVelvet Room Requests, which leads to theunlocking of The Monad Depths, ten bonus floors of Tartarus, you’ll need tofight The Reaper with Request 53 active.
The Reaper will not drop the Bloody Buttonyou need to bring back to your attendant as proof of the battleif Request 53 isn’tactive, meaning you’ll need to fight him a second time after accepting the request later on.
Between that and The Reaper’s level, many players opt towait until late in the gameto attempt the fight.
The Reaper’s P3P Affinity Chart
Below is theabsolutely massiveaffinity chart for The Reaper in Persona 3 Portable.
Affinities and Weaknesses
-
Skills and Attacks
Heavy fire damage to one foe
Heavy fire damage to all foes
Budufyne
Heavy ice damage to one foe with a 10% chance to inflict freeze
Mabufudyne
Heavy ice damage to all foes with an 8% chance to inflict freeze
Ziodyne
Heavy electric damage to one foe with a 10% chance to inflict shock
Maziodyne
Heavy electric damage to all foes with an 8% chance to inflict shock
Heavy wind damage to one foe
Heavy wind damage to all foes
40% chance to insta-kill one foe using light magic
Mahamaon
35% chance to insta-kill any foe on the field using light magic
40% chance to insta-kill one foe using dark magic
Mamudoon
35% chance to insta-kill any foe on the field using dark magic
Heavy almighty damage to all foes
Severe almighty damage to all foes
Myriad Arrows
Medium pierce damage to all foes that hits 1–3 times per foe
Vile Assault
Heavy pierce damage to all foes, dealing 1.5x damage to downed foes
Heavy slash damage to all foes
Standard attack dealing pierce damage
Fire Break
Decreases one foe’s affinity for fire magic to average and cancels any nullifications
Ice Break
Decreases one foe’s affinity for ice magic to average and cancels any nullifications
Elec Break
Decreases one foe’s affinity for electric magic to average and cancels any nullifications
Wind Break
Decreases one foe’s affinity for wind magic to average and cancels any nullifications
Drains 35HP from one foe
Drains roughly 80 SP from one foe
Mind Charge
The next magic attack will deal double damage
With insta-kill moves on hand, be sure to bring a fewHomonculiinto the fight, which canabsorb one insta-kill moveeach.
The Reaper Battle Strategy
Which Party Members To Use
Unlike with almost every other boss in P3P, we don’t have an exact party recommendation for The Reaper - because The Reaper himself is unlike every other boss.
One of the reasons we suggest you wait a while before attempting the battle with The Reaper is thatyour teammates learn Amp and Break skillsthroughout the game that can cancel and/or exploit The Reaper’s resistances for three turns.
In conjunction with these, they’ll also learn-dyne versions of their elemental spells, which will be of massive help in the battle ahead.
Below, you’ll find a table of these helpfulBreak/Boost moves that your party members can learn, as well as when they’ll learn each move to help you make a plan of attack to fight The Reaper.
“Boost"passive skills increase the power of the element listed by25 percent, while"Amp"passive skills will boost it by50 percent.
57
60
64
61
76
53
77
55
65
45
God’s Hand
It may work out best for you toassemble your own roster of Personasbefore assembling your SEES teammates, though.
If you’ve waited a while to fight The Reaper, you’ll likely have access tohigh-level Personasfrom your Compendium, likethe ones that result from maxed social links.
These are the Personas most likely to learnmoves dealing severe damage. Below, you’ll find the names of those moves, as well as the Personas capable of using them.
58
86
63
Fortune
(Innate)
These four moves allconsume massive amounts of SP, so come prepared withitems to replenish it.
Thunder Reignspecifically is a fan-favorite, as itinflicts shock, so long as it hits. The Reaper is susceptible to shock, andphysical attacks will land critical hits.
If you’ve gotany of those four Personas, it’ll be best tobring them and a teammate with that Break spellif your Persona doesn’t have it themselves. That way, you can count on a teammate tocancel the resistanceand your Persona totake advantage.
Even with the strongest teammates and Personas,this battle will take a while. In tandem with your Break/Boost moves,be sure to bring a healer or two, as you’ll definitely be losing health and probably teammates throughout the battle.
Though it may be helpful to focus on also havingPersonas that drain certain elements, beware thatThe Reaper seems to factor strength and weakness into choosing his moves, so your Personas draining or repelling moves may not factor in.
A good way around this is tobring Personas with as few weaknessesas you can.
Don’t Use Barriers, Omnipotent Orbs, Or Too Many All-Out Attacks
Because the fight wasn’t already stressful enough, The Reaper doesn’t like it when you use a handful of different items or spells to try to give yourself an advantage.
MakarakarnandTetrakarnare usually great options to use to erect either amagic or physical barrier, respectively. This will usually shieldeach teammate from one magic or physical attackandrepel itback at the attacker.
Additionally, if you’ve lucked into anOmnipotent Orb,which can be obtained on a one percent chance fromMessiah’s Heart Item, or in aNG+ runof P3P after defeatingThe Ultimate Opponent.
However,don’t use Makarakarn, Tetrakarn,orOmnipotent Orbsduring this fight. Doing so will immediately coerce The Reaper into usingMegidolaon, which dealssevere almighty damageand will likely prove fatal to anyone whose level isn’t maxed out.
It’s unlikely that this will happen unless you’re playing your team very carefully, but if you have the chance to performtwo consecutive All-Out Attackson The Reaper, reconsider.
Hitting The Reaper with two All-Out Attacks on back-to-back turns may also cause it to useMegidolaon.
However, usingtoo many All-Out Attackscan alsocancel The Reaper being dizzyafter you’ve downed it.
If you canshock and then physically attackThe Reaper, he’ll betoo dizzy to get up, which will force him towaste a turn. This is a great time to pull off anybuff or debuff moveswithout fear of being hit.
How To Beat The Reaper In One Move
We know we’ve offered quite a lot of strategy info above, but if you’d rather avoid the long and arduous battle with The Reaper, there’s a way to do so.
The owner of Shinshoudo Antiques, located at Paulownia Mall, is able to sell youFusion Spellsafter she opens on6/9. These are ultra-powerful moves thatonly your protagonist can usein battle, offering a variety of effects depending on which you purchase.
The most powerful of these Fusion Spells is without questionArmageddon, which is described as “deal[ing] ultimate damage to all foes.” By that, the owner of Shinshoudo Antiques means thatthe attack deals 9,999 damage to all enemies in battle.
And while The Reaper does have plenty of HP, having your protagonist deploy Armageddon willkill The Reaper in a single turn.
However, the Fusion Spell definitely doesn’t come cheap. It’ll cost you99 Malachite and 10 Rubies.
Malachite is easy enough to find, and you’ll likely find yourself maxed out before too long unless you’re spending it regularly.
Unfortunately,Rubies are hard to come by. Like any gemstones, you can find themin Tartarus by defeating shadows. Those shadows, however, are only inlater blocks of Tartarus.
165-179
180-190
245-261
Adamah
Even from these shadows, obtaining rubies from drops depends onthe Luck stat of the Persona you’ve got equipped.
You canboost your Luck staton any Personausing cards from Shinshoudo Antiques.
However, you can also get a total of six rubies through other means.
Once you’ve got the 99 Malachite and 10 Rubies, go to Shinshoudo Antiques, select“Trade for Item,”and scroll to the very bottom to locateArmageddon.
After you’ve got the Fusion Spell, simply trigger The Reaper’s spawn, wait for your protagonist’s turn, deploy Armageddon, and watch as The Reaper goes down, probably before it even gets to attack.
