[This article was written for base SMT V. SMT V Vengeance update coming soon™]
In Shin Megami Tensei V, you are offered complete customizability in building the main character, Nahobino. What category you put stats into, what skills you want to have, your affinities, everything. This customizability is great, but it may leave some people with choice paralysis, not knowing exactly what the best way to go is. So I wanted to make this post going over the build I ended up with during my first playthrough.
Related:
Stats
As you can probably tell, but I put almost all my allotted stat points into Strength. Putting points into Strength or Magic gives you a guaranteed return, your damage will just be higher, and because of how customizable Nahobino is, he can output more damage than any other Demon. Vitality is another good stat to consider, especially on Hard mode, it can sometimes make the difference between surviving or multiple game overs. Agility and Luck, in my opinion, aren’t really worth investing in. I’ve never had problems landing hits/dodging with no investment in Agility, and there’s been some testing from people who save edited the game to give a Demon 999 Agility, low level demons were still able to hit them. Agility can affect your likelihood to escape battles, but you can simply use Trafuri/Smoke Balls. Luck might be good on an Ailment/Poison-focused build, and for item drop rates, but otherwise it’s not too worth it.
As for Strength or Magic, I think both routes are viable. Magic is very good early game, as it can always grant extra press turns and provides good damage. A Strength build really takes off after you get late game skills like Murakumo, a Strength-based Almighty attack with high Crit Damage. For every Story fight and the Shiva Superboss fight, both builds can work extremely well (a lot of speedrunners are actually going Magic build so far). There is the optional DLC Demi-Fiend fight, which most people go Strength build for, but I have seen Magic build runs that do well there. So go for either one, just make sure to only invest in Strength or Magic, not both. Investing in both will make your damage pretty mediocre.
Aside from a Strength or Magic build, you can go for a Support/Healing build. Vengeance Edit: Nahobino got some new moves, making support build actually very good! Along with former moves like Kanabi Veil and Revival Chant:
- Inflaming Divinity: Luster Candy x2 to 1 ally
- Evergreen Dance: Greatly fills the Magatsuhi Gauge
- Lunation Flux: Self MP Restore, Doesn’t Use Press Turn
- Luminescent Mirage: 100% evasion from 1 attack for 1 turn (can make opponents lose press turns)
- Intercalation (+1 Press Turn next turn if you evade an attack, pairs well with the previous skill)
Skills
For my Strength Nahobino, I went with a crit-focused Murakumo build. Murakumo, being Almighty, hits everything for neutral damage and can’t be resisted. Normal moves, when they crit, do 1.5x damage, but Murakumo has increased Crit Damage, letting you do 1.8x damage on a critical. This makes using it in conjunction with Critical Aura (next attack is guaranteed critical and 100% accurate) and Critical Zealot (decreases normal damage but increases Crit Damage) a great idea. Almighty Pleroma and High Almighty Pleroma stack and buff Murakumo. Abyssal Mask and Enduring Soul are good safety skills, preventing ailments/insta-kills and giving you 1 extra life per battle. The last skill slot is something to cover a weakness, like Repel Force.
A general skill path for a Strength-Almighty build would be something like this:
- Aramasa -> Sakanagi -> Murakumo
- AoE move -> Divine Arrowfall (a magic move but still good damage for your level) -> Wrath Tempest -> Replace with High Almighty Pleroma at endgame because bosses generally only need single-target
- Bloody Glee -> Critical Aura
- Hellish Mask -> Abyssal Mask
- Endure -> Enduring Soul
- Support move like Kannabi Veil/Matarukaja/etc -> Almighty Pleroma
- Extra skill slot -> Critical Zealot
- Weakness Covering Skill
This type of build will work great for both the story and super bosses. You rely on your Demons to buff/de-buff/heal, use Critical Aura and on the next turn, do a lot of damage. If you have a Magatsuhi Critical turn coming up, you can use Donum Gladi from a support to buff Nahobino beforehand. It’s worth noting that Charge is nerfed in this game, it only increases your damage by 1.8x instead of the regular 2.5x in previous games, so it’s not worth it outside of saving MP.
Here’s my attempt at making an example Magic-based build, for the Shiva boss fight:
- Bufubarion
- Zanbarion
- High Ice Pleroma
- High Wind Pleroma
- High Restore
- Abyssal Mask/Great Mana Spring
- Enduring Soul
- Weakness Covering Skill
Ice damage because Shiva is weak to Ice. Wind because Ananta, a healing Demon Shiva summons, blocks Ice but is weak to Wind. And a bunch of passives. High Restore especially can useful for conserving MP.
Affinities
When it comes to Nahobino’s affinities, you want to be changing them before every big boss fight in order to prevent damage and make the boss lose press turns. For example, before Nuwa, use a Null Force Essence to block her moves. As far as endgame Essences, there are a number of options:
- Sandalphon: Null Phys/Elec/Light, Resist Dark, Weak to Force
- Metatron: Null Light, Resist Fire/Ice/Elec/Force
- Trumpeter (DLC): Null Light/Dark, Resist Fire/Ice/Elec/Force
- Mother Harlot (DLC): Repel Phys, Absorb Elec, Resist Fire/Light/Dark, Weak to Force
All these Essences require only 1 skill slot to block a weakness or nullify Physical attacks. Blocking Physical is pretty good to have in the Demi-Fiend fight, which is why I’d recommend these.
If you beat Demi-Fiend, you get his Essence which blocks all elements and ailments, asides from Almighty.
Those are basically my recommendations for building Nahobino. If you liked this type of post, you might like my SMT V Demon Builds one. And I have a YouTube channel where I post build videos, boss fights, among other things. Check it out below.
What Essences have these skills? This page has a list of all the skills in the game and what demon they come from. But to list some of them:
- Murakumo: Aogami Type-0
- Sakanagi: Aogami Type-3
- Aramasa: Aogami Type-1
- Divine Arrowfall: Aogami Type-6
- Wrath Tempest: Aogami Type-7
- Critical Aura: Xuanwu, Matador, Jatayu, Flauros, Loup-Garou, Hecatoncheires, Odin, Asura
- Critical Zealot: Hecatoncheires, Ganesha, Girimehkala
- Almighty Pleroma: Aogami Type-0, Nebiros, Lilith, Huang Long
- High Almighty Pleroma: Metatron, Shiva
- Abyssal Mask: Aogami Type-10, Scathach, Bishamonten, Fafnir, Thor, Amon
- Enduring Soul: Aogami Type-0, Siegfried, Cerberus, Mara, Fionn, Vishnu
What about Freikugal? -> Murakumo vs Freikugal post by mongopikis.
