SMT IV: Apocalypse - Stephen (Low Level, Apocalypse Difficulty)

As would be expected of a superboss, Stephen is simply incomparable in difficulty to any other bosses in the game. He's much too difficult to defeat without fusion skill inheritance, even with the strongest demons in the game. However, it's still possible to beat him with a lower-leveled team, so long as the demons have fully optimized skillsets.

Since Stephen's skills are comparable to YHVH's, a similar party is necessary, but with much better HP and skills. At minimum, all party members should have close to 1000 HP, physical resistance, and null one of Calamity Code's ailments. Some useful skills include Null Nerve, which blocks brand status in addition to preventing ailments from Calamity Code, Healing Knowhow, Enduring Soul, and Endure.

I chose to use Taowu, Ukano Mitama, and Nozuchi, just for old times' sake. They're not the best choices, but there's enough room to maneuver with complete skill inheritance freedom. All three have passable HP with Life Surge, Life Gain, Life Bonus, and some level-ups. Taowu and Ukano Mitama also need Anti-Phys to survive, which unfortunately only reduces damage by 50%, whereas Nozuchi's innate resistance reduces damage by 75%. With the other passive skills mentioned above, there's very little space for actual support skills. Taowu, the most important due to its high agility, can only fit War Cry and Rakukaja and has to forego Null Nerve, Ukano Mitama can only fit Mediarahan, and Nozuchi can only fit Rakukaja.

The Nibelengun armor and Sharp Earring are best for Nanashi, since it's almost impossible to win without ailment protection at this level and it's too risky to have him take physical hits. That unfortunately leaves him with relatively low HP, so I had to use the 11 Armor Boost Kits I had on leg armor to give him passable HP, while also boosting his Ag by 66. I also used the single HP Incense and MP Incense that are acquirable without DLC, but did not use any other incenses beyond that. It's also important to equip the Trident melee weapon, which is very important for the second phase.

Phase 1: With a proper team setup, this battle is very monotonous. As long as a few buffs and debuffs are constantly being applied, Stephen's attacks will rarely cause problems, even with the high critical rate of Energy Compression. However, Stephen is a massive damage sponge with 25000 HP and no weaknesses, so the battle is quite lengthy. It's important to never debuff Stephen's stats to -3, or he'll respond with Dekunda and two Singularity elementals in a row, wiping the team. Keeping his attack and defense at -2 with War Cry and removing evasion buffs with Dekaja Stones works fine, and it's also generally not worth buffing defense above +2 since Stephen regularly uses Reboot Code. The remainder of the battle simply consists of attacking with Nanashi and healing every turn. I realized after this that I could have used Floral Gust or Glacial Blast on Nanashi instead of Ziodyne since I was fusing, but it's winnable either way.

Phase 2: With the arrival of the other messiahs, Stephen stops messing around and brings out Particle Annihilation, Pair Production, Wave Function, and later uses Crack Code and Black Hole. He also begins using Singularity Wave if he is not damaged by either team for a full turn, which should be prevented whenever possible. Nanashi's team is in full support mode, since the other messiahs are fully capable at taking out Stephen's 90000+ HP. Even Nanashi's damage output is very weak in comparison to the other messiahs, so the best way he can contribute is by using the Trident to prevent Singularity Wave. The other team generally just needs one round of buffs from The Hero, then they should be in good shape with Nanashi's team using War Cry every once in a while. There's not too much else to note, other than manipulating press turns to reduce the impact of missed attacks. I was much more cautious with MP use than I had to be, since in a previous attempt I literally ran out of MP restoration items besides Chakra Drops (Great Chakras, Chakra Pots, Bead of Lifes, Somas, and Soma Drops). I also brought a very large low level support squad since I figured that it would be easier to summon those than bring back Taowu or Ukano Mitama. In the end, Pixie was the only one that saw use.

Notable moments:

35:30 Stephen's first Crack Code use. I didn't have a gun weakness, so I just used a Bead Chain and took a chance with Singularity Wave on Nanashi's team. I didn't realize until after the battle that Aleph's basic attack is actually physical and not gun.

49:47 I just barely survived here. Chances are I would have lost if Ukano Mitama had died, but it held on with only 3 HP.

52:34 SMT players feeding Pixie EXP