Shin Megami Tensei 5: How To Beat Vasuki

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• Vasuki’s Potentials, Attacks, and Resistances

• Recommended Party Setup

• Preparing For Battle

• Battle Strategy

When it comes to areas in Shin Megami Tensei 5, few can compare to the difficulty spike that is Taito. Not only are basic enemies much stronger than is reasonable to expect, but the bosses you have to fight are incredibly powerful – likely 20 levels your senior.

Taito has three bosses that oversee the region, and the order in which you have to defeat them is entirely up to you. Vasuki is one of the said bosses, and he lords over the Hindu district of Taito. Interestingly, Vasuki is simultaneously the weakest and the most difficult boss of the area.

Vasuki’s Potentials, Attacks, and Resistances

Potentials

Vasuki’s power, as his Potentials reveal, does not lie in his ability to deal damage. Slithering in with a monstrously high Status Potential, you can imagine what kind of guy Vasuki is. Backing this up is a rather impressive Ice Potential too, but this, as you will soon find out, is mostly irrelevant.

One thing to note, Vasuki also has a very high Luck stat of 72. This means all of his ailments have a very high chance of landing.

Attacks

Vasuki is an absolute nightmare if you go in unprepared, and honestly, continues to be a bit of a nightmare once you know what to do. The nature of Vasuki’s kit makes it very difficult to plan anything. An impromptu Sleep or Charm, when delivered en masse, can throw quite the spanner.

Vasuki can be broken down into two forms of attack – Physical and annoying. His Physical damage is how he will ultimately kill you, but it isn’t all that effective in the grand scheme. His stats don’t really push Physical damage, and his lack of Potentials hurt it even more.

All of that being said, Hysterical Slap and Venom Chaser are very dangerous if you don’t plan for them. The bonus damage inflicted to Poisoned/Charmed party members is significant. Frenzied Chomp is also a pain to deal with because its damage is decent, and the randomness of its secondary effect can cause issues.

Naturally, his ailments are the biggest hurdle to overcome. Toxic Spray is his least impressive, but most out-right dangerous skill. It only hits one enemy, but Poison damage can rack up if not removed, and the Defense debuff makes his other damage more potent.

Makajamaon is a skill that forces you to ignore ailment removing spells. You simply won’t have the opportunity to use them, and your first action every time this lands is to use an Amrita Soda or Amrita Shower. Seal shuts down your party's offense and defense. It needs to be removed ASAP.

Slumber Vortex is another dangerous attack that puts your whole party to sleep. If this successfully lands on your team, you are in for a world of hurt. Unlike Seal, there is no counter to this – you just lose your turn. This could flat-out end the fight if RNG doesn’t go your way. Having at least one demon be immune to sleep – ideally early in the party lineup – is almost a must.

Sexy Dance is another Amrita Shower/Amrita Soda consumer. Charm will have your team attacking each other, and that is never a good thing. Removing this ailment should be a priority.

Finally, Mabufudyne can be almost completely ignored. This attack is only used after Vasuki gathers Magatsuhi, so a Damper will shut it down. Because this is Vasuki’s only Ice attack, you don’t even need to worry about bringing demons weak to Ice.

Resistances

Vasuki reflects Ice damage and is resistant to Dark. That’s not a particularly impressive set of Resistances, so just about any form of damage will do. Vasuki is weak to Fire, however, and this should be a priority in this fight.

Recommended Party Setup

Because Vasuki is weak to Fire and lacks any way to inflict Ice – Fire’s natural weakness – Fire demons should make up the core of your party. Thankfully, there are a bunch of incredible demons perfectly suited for this role.

Support demons in general are not great in this fight. Items will serve you much better as they aren’t going to be gimped by any of Vasuki’s abilities. Reserving a spot for a tank, however, can go a long way.

Surt

Surt is the big winner in this fight. Not only is Surt a fantastic demon in general, but Surt is the king when it comes to dealing massive amounts of Fire damage. As standard, Surt comes with Fire Dracostrike and a fantastic Strength stat to boot. This will take huge chunks out of Vasuki, and can be augmented with Charge, Donum Gladi, and Fire Pleroma without much hassle.

It’s also possible to transfer Ice Resistance onto Surt, removing his only weakness, making him very hard to kill in general. Finally, Surt is not vulnerable to any ailment, making it less likely for them to land. Other things to consider would be Murderous Glee and Retaliate to greatly increase his damage output and utility.

Surt’s only downside is that he is a Special Fusion. This makes him rather expensive to summon, but it is well worth the effort.

Adramelech

Adramelech is another fantastic demon to bring along to this fight – although he is a pretty high-leveled demon meaning you may have to grind for it. With access to brilliant Potentials and a phenomenal set of default skills, Adramelech can do a lot of work.

With access to High FIre Pleroma and Agibarion, the amount of damage Adramelech can pump out is hard to match. When partnered up with Surt, these two demons will carry you to victory. Heck, even with just one of them, this fight will go much smoother.

Rangda

Rangda is another demon who is rather high-leveled but will serve you well going forward. Rangda is the best tank in the game at this point, coming with an innate Reflect Physical. This can be a huge boon in this fight, especially if you give Rangda Taunt – which you should.

Every time Vasuki tries to attack, he will focus on Rangda, his turn will end, and he will take a hit for his troubles. Whilst this won’t stop his AoE ailments, it will hinder everything else. Rangda’s only notable weakness in this fight is against Sleep. Thankfully, Rangda doesn't need to be awake to do the job at hand.

Thor

Thor is a Physical powerhouse who is very hard to shift. He has fantastic stats, access to Abyssal Mask massively reducing the odds of ailments affecting him, and has access to some great damage abilities.

Thor is just reliable. Vasuki can’t do much to him, and his damage is high enough that taking him just for a few Physical smacks is worthwhile. Consider transferring even stronger Physical attacks onto him, and maybe Physical Pleroma to further increase his damage.

Futsunushi

Another Physical demon who is pretty hard to shift. Futsunushi has access to Catastrophe – a very powerful single-target Physical attack, and Impaler’s Animus – a Charge-like skill can come in handy in later fights.

Futsunushi also comes with Physical Pleroma as standard, making him great right off the bat. His ailment resistances are also very good, with only a weakness to sleep which can be sorted with items. To offset this, he nullifies and resists practically everything else.

When it comes to extra skills, you don’t need any with Futsunushi. This demon is ready built to cause havoc.

Preparing For Battle

Essence Fusion

When it comes to fusing Nahobino, you will want to slap on some Fire damage like Agidyne or Fire Dracostrike so you can target Vasuki’s weakness. Almighty damage can do work too, with Sakanagi or Murakumo being great skills as per usual.

Physical resistance can go a long way here, but if you have a dedicated tank, you don’t necessarily need it. Try to prioritize not having weaknesses to ailments if you can, however.

In general, Nahobino can act as an item caddy, so his actual build isn’t that important in this fight.

Dampers

In this fight, you want to bring three Ice Dampers. This will shut down Vasuki’s only Ice attack, and give you a huge opening to deal massive damage. It only costs 450 Macca and is always a good investment. If you are concerned the fight will drag on, bring a demon who can cast Ice Block on your party too.

Gems

Fire Gems and Shards will help you deal some extra damage and generate bonus turns if you run out of mana, or if your best demons end up dying. This shouldn’t happen, but it never hurts to have a few just in case.

Amrita Showers

Because so many of Vasuki’s attacks are AoE ailments, having a bunch of Amrita Showers will help to trivialize this encounter. Amrita Sodas can work too.

Miracles

There is only one Miracle that could be considered a must-take, and that is Knowledge of Tools. This Miracle can be found at the top of the Supremacy tree and allows your demons to use items. The utility and freedom this grants cannot be understated.

Battle Strategy

Vasuki, providing you have prepared for the fight, is pretty straightforward. The most difficult aspect of the fight is getting things in place to prevent Vasuki from causing too much carnage.

Have Rangda cast Taunt, and then use everything you have to deal as much damage as possible. Once ailments start flowing, throw out an Amrita Shower to cleanse your party. You can probably ignore Poison if that is the only ailment on the field, but anything else should be removed ASAP.

If you aren’t taking a support demon, then remember to throw healing items at your party, like Beads, as and when needed. Because Rangda is tanking with Physical Reflect, you may very well get through this fight without having to heal at all.

When Vasuki gathers Magatsuhi, remember to throw an Ice Damper and then get back to attacking. The Ice Damper will effectively skip Vasuki’s following turn, giving you two free turns of damage.

Once Vasuki falls, you can make your way to Odin and Zeus to finish off the Taito area.

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