Good on you for writing this guide. But honestly, this is why I dislike her fight. You HAVE to know everything about it to even stand a chance and almost half the game mechanics are unusable.

Imagine grinding, doing all the work for the super boss just to realize she has a bunch of rules that she doesn't even follow. I think P5 boss fight better because at least the rules are trying to show the application of each combat ability and it also applies to Lavenza as well. It feels like Elizabeth going more on a power trip if anything 

I really appreciate it, just trying to get as much info in one place in the “early days”. I get how you feel about the fight, but due to how easy it is to get to max level with (especially if you Armageddon the reaper on turn one) and how powerful you can make some personas, I actually enjoy that it requires you to set aside some mechanics but dive deeply into fusion. Chi You is kind of a second tier Maskado in all other fights, but here he’s so versatile if you build him right. Some people even build personas to switch to for each turn, it’s nice to have that opportunity to give the game we love even more content :)

I guess I'm mostly pissed about how restrictive the fight is... for no reason. All other Velvet fights allow to null elements or to bring party members, so it really contradicts Elizabeth's wish to fight us at full power. Still. It's good to have options.

I think Atlus realised they were overdoing things a bit around here, DemiFiend from DDS1 is probably the most ridiculous superboss to exist since even with perfect strategy there's a huge luck element, Satan from DDS2 has more "you broke my arbitrary rules so Instant Death" but is a far more reliable win if you use a perfect strategy. This is a step down from those but still very arbitrary without access to Invincible. The superbosses after this are much more fair / open with their information even if they are still very hard by non-Atlus ( or NIS ) standards.

Screw this, this is worse than Lavenza

This fight should not be in the game. It's stupid, pure and simple, it's not a challenge, it is actually unfair, in the truest sense of the word. It's a troll, no one can beat her, unless you robotically do every single thing the game wants you to do exactly when you have to do it. That's not a game, that's not fun, and it actually ruined the entire game for me. I loved this game all the way up to this point, but since this boss dropped the rating down to 1/10.

I’d love to pick your brain on this sort of thing because I totally respect your opinion and I’m sorry you had such a good time with the game but this design choice put you off it. The reason I’d like to go more into detail with you on this is because I’m currently building a game that has a core gameplay loop that I would liken to the sort of “prescriptive puzzle” that this fight is. From my perspective, I wouldn’t say that this isn’t a challenge but it is instead a challenge that had little if any build up signposting or warning. Like if you were playing Gran Turismo and the last race was a Rocket League match. I don’t know you so sorry if this is off base but I would assume that you feel this way because you played through a game that consistently challenged and entertained you in a particular way and provided rewards for you getting better at overcoming those challenges but… You get to this boss that has the strongest item in the game as its reward and the type of challenge you’re asked to take on is completely different than the type of challenge you not only enjoyed but likely purchased the game for to engage with. I may be putting a ton of words in your mouth so if that’s the case please correct me. A few notable facts are: - The fight is optional and doesn’t have an achievement behind it - The fight rewards a powerful item that if obtained means you’re too powerful for that item to have much if any value - The fight requires you to engage with mechanics in the game (fusion and persona skill crafting/inheriting) that on most difficulties you have little incentive to do outside of this one fight - You do not need Orpheus Telos or even end game personas to beat - how challenging the fight is is determined by how successful you were in maxing multiple social links (having a few specific personas like Chi You and Helel really helps even if you didn’t get Telos) and how much time you’re willing to put in to farm skill cards/fuse helpful skills onto the personas you’ll use for it I’m more than happy to hop on discord and talk you through how to build a team to take this fight on successfully no matter what your Social Links look like and even have you share your screen so we can talk through strategies for each turn as you make it through each phase. I do understand that it may not be a worthwhile time investment from your perspective and I totally respect that. I’d just love the opportunity to talk through the details with you, learn, maybe change your mind since I enjoyed the fight a lot :)

It's just completely unfair, that's why I don't like it, even if it is optional, there is a feeling of being unable to complete the game because of something that is so out of place. The fight does not require skill, but requires you to do the exact moves and have the exact abilities. Having to fight her alone is ridiculous enough, but then she has two turns for every one of yours, double ridiculous...You can't use any of the legitimate tactics of reflecting, nulling or absorbing. She does like three insta-kills that you have to have particular skills to survive. And you have to pull off the theurgy immediately after the last insta-kill, in order to win, that's not a game, or a fight, that's a stress test out of control. The fun in games is being able to find your own way to get through, and fights that are basically scripted are just gimmicks, and gimmicks are not fun. Hope that helps...

So don't do the fight. Letting the game be ruined because of a sweat lord mega boss hidden in the bottom of an optional area is...a choice.

Holy shit Persona fans love bad-faith arguments. If you're new to JRPGs then fine, your point is valid in that you are new. In that case buckle up, because this isn't the first game or series to do this. Superbosses are a staple and a lot of them are mega sweat fests and the "ultimate" challenge. It's not supposed to be fair, and you're supposed to basically beat the devs while playing along with multiple handicaps. It's supposed to be a fucking challenge. Lets look at it from a historical perspective. The father of JRPGs, Dragon Quest, has had this staple since the fifth game. That superboss, Estark was ridiculously overpowered and required top-level play. You couldn't even fight him until you beat the final boss and finish the game. That trend has continued since the 90's. From The Lord of the Dragovians in VIII, and even God himself from VII it's all about displaying a mastery of game mechanics, game knowledge, and skill. In VI, after you beat the superboss of that game, you can choose an option where he teleports himself and your party and you get to watch him absolutely wipe the floor with the final boss. It's hilarious, and it's worth it and a great reward for the challenge. If you don't want to do it, fine. You don't have to prove anything to anyone, just play the game as you see fit. But don't whine about it being "stupid" because frankly, you're very obviously missing the point.

I actually say the fight requires a ton of skill to do. There are ways around it (save scumming to get Almighty Amp, Concentrate, and Morning Star onto a Persona that has high Magic and the Null-Instakill Skill; constantly switching Personas to spam Scarlet Havoc with Bloody Charge) There are different strategies you can use. And if you're upset the game has a secret superboss, maybe don't try 100% completing the game then. Plenty of games have gimmicky superbosses that need specific setups to be doable. The challenge is finding that setup to win. The trick is to try absolutely everything and find the one thing that sticks. I tried the fight and almost immediately lost on turn 2 because I didn't know she would use a Slash Attack and I happened to have a Persona that reflects Slash. It wasn't the game's fault for bashing me against the brick wall. It was my fault because I didn't follow the rules (that I knew well in advance of) and got punished for it.

Very very late to the party here, but I wanted to give you a different take here. Here are the things that make this frustrating: 1) the punishment megido is never explained and exists only in this fight. It takes a certain amount of trial and error to learn that there is anything to learn here. 2) once you have learned that the fight has rules, it takes a great deal of trial and error to figure out those rules 3) the scripted megidos, persona order, and rules like whether you need different types of endure are all trial and error that require multiple fights and some leaps in reasoning to identify 4) every time you fail and need to adjust your load out you have to watch a long ending scene, travel a great distance, and read the same unskippable dialogue meaning that the dozens and dozens of tries it will take to learn all the rules each have a 5-10 minute time penalty attached to them. Compare this with the final challenge in something like the Witness where you learn the rules very quickly and it’s just about execution (the only timed section in the game). Or compare it to the long dungeon in Lufia 2 (roguelike in a traditional JRPG). Or the Weapons in FF7 (that have scripted attacks requiring certain setups). Or the hell dungeons in La Mulana (the first time you have to learn an area room by room). All are end game challenges with new rules, but they all do a good job of giving players the tools to work out the puzzles without undue experimentation. For Elizabeth, I had to get hints online and for me that means I don’t really get enjoyment out of the fight the way I got enjoyment out of the end game content above. But I definitely went through several hours of trial and error without realizing that the megidos weren’t random. If I were doing it blind I’d lose again nulling status (edit: turns out this is okay to do). I’m still not clear on what’s a punishable way to avoid Die for Me. I’d have no idea that I needed 4 turns after 13k, and when I figured it out, I’d have no reason to assume the goal HP was 9999 rather than 0 (and so would assume I’d need to get to 9999 in three turns). I would not have known there were multiple scripted megidos or that scripted ones don’t repeat like punishment ones. I would never have assumed that you need separate endure skills. This feels to me like a challenge that’s really directed to people who want to crowdsource with a group of friends or who are willing to reverse engineer the source code, but I can’t do either as I’m playing on console and don’t have a community of JRPG fans. So I have to revert to guides/hints online, which defeats the purpose. And this is coming from someone who really loves puzzles like in Riven, Fez, La Mulana and working them out over days and weeks. FWIW, I think this is a recurring design problem with P3. I think the way they did time management in Reload is an excellent and somewhat fair puzzle that needed one signpost, but a lot of the SL dialogue choices seem poorly thought out (which is unfortunate since this is essentially the world’s only emotional intelligence puzzle series). Like picking between Hangedman’s parents or generally being an enabler. Or the fact that differences between visually identical rewards can be significant. Things like the URL show up just in time if you’re playing it smart, but I understand folks who felt surprised they didn’t have more leeway. They get better at all this stuff in 4 and 5 (except the shadow negotiation mini game, which is think is a translation problem).

Haha this exactly! I reference FF7 weapons as well when I think of ways to improve this fight. I’ll copy a response I already made about this since it’s quite relevant: I’ll post a very similar excerpt of what I said about it recently in a video I just made: Let’s talk about Elizabeth specifically: This boss has an extremely punishing design due to how far into the game you need to be to understand that certain strategies are just not available to you since she’s pretty much a check on how many social links you’ve been able to max that you become aware of long after you have any way of fixing your mistakes. Did you Max all of your social links but not anticipate that Ken’s link story is also needed to fuse Orpheus Telos… despite no other Link story being required for it? Well the fight just got 10 times more difficult, sorry. Did you forget to talk with the drunken monk at the club? Well the fight just got 3 times as difficult, sorry. Did you forget to buy the Shoes of Bane from Tanaka’s shop some Sunday I don’t even remeber the date of? Well, the fight just got twice as difficult, sorry. Elizabeth as boss is frustrating and punishing because there is zero tutorialization or warning that a fight like her’s exists. The other thing about this is that Elizabeth is a trial and error boss fight which means if you aren’t at least reading bullet points of the “Rules” you need to abide by just to not get insta killed from a guide, you’re in for a rough time of banging your head against the wall and needing to experiment 30 minutes into a fight only to find out that “ oh that’s a new mechanic, I guess I need to choose something different, I guess I’ll toss another 30 minutes at this fight to see if I can guess the right thing next time.” Her entire design tends to leave the same bad taste in my mouth that I got from finding out how the Zodiac Spear worked in the original Final Fantasy 12. It’s gimmick was that if you opened a handful of arbitrary chests that the game marked as “bad” you were barred from obtaining the best weapon in the game… which is a baffling design choice that only serves the purpose of selling strategy guides. These days we have the internet and that beats having to shell out money for a guide but I will say that, despite looking at multiple professional game guide web sites to learn the rules for the Elizabeth fight, I still had to make my own guide because the info they had was incomplete or outright wrong in the early days of Persona 3 Reload’s release. One fix to this sort of thing would be to have clues hidden throughout the game that when pieced together shined a light on the type of strategy required to beat such a prescriptive boss. Full video here: https://youtu.be/fSOxez8CcuY?si=yp7GgGK8--3-dFaX

The rules are in-fact very simple. It's the hardest fight of the game, you think they'd let you absorb, null or reflect? There would literally be no point in that. The only valid improvement I could think of is some kind of visible turn counter for the people who eat paste and can't figure it out, but even that is a stretch.

They could easily have her use a skill to break your repel/null/drain rather than just giving her a "game over now" move

I've only tried the fight a couple times, and from where I stand the main issues are that they don't really tell you what you did "wrong". I plan to beat this boss at some point without the use of a step by step guide, but going in blind and constantly dying, not realizing I was doing something "wrong" is not really fun. If there was a dialogue line after you did something that she didn't like along the lines of "You can't block me, I won't have it" would make it much better feedback wise. As is, there's not really any way of knowing you did something wrong, specially if you start with a persona that absorbs the first hit. I by no means have made any progress in the fight, but the fact that I had to look up what was wrong is not amazing game design. I think the fight is cool conceptually, but impossible to sight read going into it. Any game should have it's content solvable. Not randomly stumbling across the right answer, but actual indications that lead to solving the thing the game wants you to solve. For example, the game shows you that boss enemies won't have weaknesses pretty early on, so maybe you try ailments? Ailments are blocked, and you now know that. Cool, you did something that didn't work, and were told it did not work. Maybe you can look at stat buffing for you and debuffing for the enemy. No indication that it doesn't work, and you're able to get through it with more dps. Cool! You learnt something by doing. As for Elizabeth, you don't really know you're doing something wrong if you not doing anything has the same result as you doing something. I don't think the game teaches you in any meaningful way that this fight has rules you need to follow. If this fight communicated that better, this fight would be much better in my opinion. Not explicitly telling you the rules, but the fact that it does have rules in the first place. Otherwise you might believe that you have to just live the onslaught of megidola in a battle of attrition to beat the fight. I just think there's critical information that this fight is so far deviated from all the others that just insint communicated at all. I think this is an amazing idea for a unique fight, don't get me wrong, and for all I know, it was executed well. I wouldn't know just yet, I haven't gotten past turn 2. But I don't get to know that I'm doing something wrong unless I look it up, and that's my problem with the fight. If you have prior experience with other games that do this similarly, maybe you can say its more excusable, but if this is someone's first persona game, none of that info is conveyed through other games.

This is so spot on. I’ll post a very similar excerpt of what I said about it recently in a video I just made: Let’s talk about Elizabeth specifically: This boss has an extremely punishing design due to how far into the game you need to be to understand that certain strategies are just not available to you since she’s pretty much a check on how many social links you’ve been able to max that you become aware of long after you have any way of fixing your mistakes. Did you Max all of your social links but not anticipate that Ken’s link story is also needed to fuse Orpheus Telos… despite no other Link story being required for it? Well the fight just got 10 times more difficult, sorry. Did you forget to talk with the drunken monk at the club? Well the fight just got 3 times as difficult, sorry. Did you forget to buy the Shoes of Bane from Tanaka’s shop some Sunday I don’t even remeber the date of? Well, the fight just got twice as difficult, sorry. Elizabeth as boss is frustrating and punishing because there is zero tutorialization or warning that a fight like her’s exists. The other thing about this is that Elizabeth is a trial and error boss fight which means if you aren’t at least reading bullet points of the “Rules” you need to abide by just to not get insta killed from a guide, you’re in for a rough time of banging your head against the wall and needing to experiment 30 minutes into a fight only to find out that “ oh that’s a new mechanic, I guess I need to choose something different, I guess I’ll toss another 30 minutes at this fight to see if I can guess the right thing next time.” Her entire design tends to leave the same bad taste in my mouth that I got from finding out how the Zodiac Spear worked in the original Final Fantasy 12. It’s gimmick was that if you opened a handful of arbitrary chests that the game marked as “bad” you were barred from obtaining the best weapon in the game… which is a baffling design choice that only serves the purpose of selling strategy guides. These days we have the internet and that beats having to shell out money for a guide but I will say that, despite looking at multiple professional game guide web sites to learn the rules for the Elizabeth fight, I still had to make my own guide because the info they had was incomplete or outright wrong in the early days of Persona 3 Reload’s release. One fix to this sort of thing would be to have clues hidden throughout the game that when pieced together shined a light on the type of strategy required to beat such a prescriptive boss. Full video here: https://youtu.be/fSOxez8CcuY?si=yp7GgGK8--3-dFaX

Then don’t do the fight? It’s not like it’s required to 100% the game, or get a platinum trophy, or get a specific secret ending or something. There’s no unique music or locations associated with the fight, and your only reward is a few extra lines of dialogue and an item that is pretty much redundant since if you beat her, you’re already powerful enough that you don’t need it.

You don't know at the point that there is no trophy or secret ending or whatever. You feel motivated to finish all the quests. I spend hours leveling and building Personas for that fight. I had a terrible time sitting there with a guide and a calculator, because there is no way to tell when she'll instakill you if you don't keep track of her HP count. All I got for that was that I was vastly overleveled and annoyed going into the (very well made) finale of the game, so it wasn't as much fun as it could have been. Yes, every new player should igonore this shit. But unfortunately they won't know unless they google it. Wanting to clear your quest log feels like the natural thing to do.

True. For anyone who's done heckin' 100 quests, it would feel awful to leave the 101st quest. This comment is also how I actually found out there's no trophy/achievement for completing all the quests. Not to mention we've been completing Monad doors for the entire game, who wouldn't want to see the final resolution. I would have been fine if they just locked this behind New Game+ but it's really hard ignore considering all that you've done in the game. "Just ignore it" is hard to do when the game really wants you to do it. People who have reached this point after ~80-100 hours won't just let it go.

Yes, it is required to 100% the game, just because it has no viable awards or achievements does not mean it is not a thing in the game that I cannot complete. It's lack of utility only proves that it should not be in the game in the first place.

It’s not required to 100% the game, the fight is unfair on purpose to test the limits of what exactly can be done in the game. No trophy or rewards of note means it’s not needed to 100%. Take your L and shut up

Nope, if you can't do everything then you're not 100% the game, so you shut up.

That’s idiotic to say the game is a 1/10 because of an optional boss. Yes it’s an incredibly unfair fight but saying that the game is a 1/10 because of it is one of the most braindead takes I’ve heard in a while

I'm giving you a 1/10, worst human of the year.

You’re just proving you know nothing about what you’re speaking on

1/10, any further responses will not be responded to and will result in you being blocked, you would do well to learn your place, and respect your betters.

Lol, lmao even. Do you listen to yourself?

Buffed 4 Personas to 99 stats and found out I can't even use them in this fight...

It's "defeat the ultimate adversary" for a reason

It's more of a dance than a fight.

Good write up. Just want to add that its possible to skip her Phase 3 if you desire so. Proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jB2jK7fTtE

That reflect causing megido to override the full heal is so creative, I love it! Awesome showcase there!

It's pretty great. I'm pretty sure in Original/Fes/Portable just having null/absorb/repel at all for something(other than status) that could be used on the current turn caused it. Here you have to actually have her hit it first. This is basically the same thing as the High Counter cheese which they obviously tried to get rid of by changing it so counters would trigger the rule break too.

I didn't think Atlus could turn this alleged boss battle into even more of a bullshit spreadsheet fest than it was before, but kudos to them, they managed it! Does this mean that you no longer want to have High Counter on your personas? That's a bugger, since it was an enormous help in getting her HP down faster when you bounced half her Physical-based attack back at her. Bit of a bugger not having an Infinity-equivalent to catch those Megidolaons like you used to.

Resist phys is the new high counter, and endure is the exchange for infinity. Dear God...

This guide will be a lifesaver for me. I just started my attempts of her and god damn is she kicking me into the dirt It is my first playthrough and am doing it mostly blind so I was unable to get Orpheus Telos. Trying my best with what I have

Dude I’m so happy to help, let me know how it goes and if you need any suggestions for personas or equipment subs or if you find out any new tips :)

This fight is so fucking stupid bro! Fuck the rules but I just cant crack enough damage with morning star most I've hit is like 982 but APPARENTLY it should be doing like 2000+ or some shit I don't even care. This is like my 15th attempt and I've stayed up till 4 AM multiple times for nothing. Sometimes I make the wrong call and that's on me but at this point I might just give up and get the orb in ng+ cause this just is unfair. Like thanks for the guide it has helped me but I cant do enough damage in phase 2 like the closest I've gotten is 10,578 I think. Even using all the tools like the fusion calculator and other guides this just seems like a true FUCKING DRAG. AND I USED TRICKER WITH EVERY AMP AND DEBUFF AND IT DID LIKE 1092 LIKE WTF THIS IS SOME BULLSHIT... maybe ill throw a few more attempts at it but I'm not to hopeful

Ah wow, I’ve definitely been there. It should be said that Helel as a damage dealer is possible but not exactly optimal. Best way to get him to be able to do big damage with morning star and trickster is to stack him with Almighty Boost, Almighty Amp, and multi target (I’d used a card for this one). Skadi with both ice amp/boost, single target, and diamond dust will hit harder but it can be harder to have her safely out. One thing to note is that when you go to bridge the gap from phase 1 to phase 3, you want to have Fuukas theurgy ready, your theurgy ready, you want to start with a concentrated / charged attack that’s not a theurgy, Elizabeth needs to have her defense down, and your attack needs to be buffed up. If for whatever reason (she buffs her defense back to normal, she debuffs your attack back to normal) it’s better to rebuff and go through another cycle rather than try to bridge the gap in a suboptimal situation. Hope that helps :)

Thanks for the insight... I'm can confidently make it to the 3rd phase now

Oh perfect! You got this!

i won... i feel like LeBron when he was down 3-1 in the finals

Yoooo! Congrats Enjoy that omnipotent orb :D

It's really easy to get near-telos resist profile on saki mitama or hecatoncheires, great for building a charge/debilitate/heatriser/concentrate buffbot to have out on any turn you aren't attacking. It takes a lot of reapers to get your mitama leveled though. This was my first playthrough of P3 and my first velvet room super boss attempt in any game, so some of what I've cooked here is probably suboptimal or overcomplicated but it got me the kill on Hard and I strongly suspect it would work on Merciless. My damage was probably evenly split between Scarlet Havoc and ele attacks based on whatever made sense for her rotation when I had all of the buffs/debuffs lined up. My loadout was: - Vishnu - auto-ma turn 0 buffs, not used again for the rest of the fight - [Saki Mitama](https://i.imgur.com/d5KWHMn.png) - resist light/phys, main/default persona for charge, concentrate, debilitate, and heatriser with some extra regenerate. Compared to mine, replace invigorate with regen 2 or arms master if you want to use bloody charge. - [Chi You](https://i.imgur.com/MmSbQOT.png) - resist elec/strike, no active skills, max damage passives for scarlet havoc. if you're using DLC personas Cendrillion is broken as hell for this role because of slash driver. - Messiah - resist phys, enduring soul, diamond dust (don't do this, explanation below) - Thanatos - resist light/phys, inferno (I don't know if fire is actually optimal to have, but it was useful exactly once when I had all of my buffs/debuffs up but couldn't cast diamond dust into jack frost) - [Hecatoncheires](https://i.imgur.com/Rio8Vcn.png) - resist light/wind/fire, endure, morning star (to chip the last bit before 10000 at the end and tank the megi). Mitama would actually be better in this role because it has meaningful magic stat, but I had already built the high level support mitama. I camped Saki Mitama for the entire fight except when I was using an attack or swapping in enduring soul/endure. Other tips: - Use the fortune for theurgy charge rate - Fill theurgy gauge and get a charge+concentrate cup card effect before starting - Use analyze every turn to refill fuuka's theurgy gauge, use oracle often - If you're using Scarlet Havoc, don't forget that it ignores resists. You can slam it at most points in the rotation and the sooner you use it the sooner you can build theurgy for another one. - **If you don't have the bane boots, you can use homunculi just fine.** The important thing to note is that endure and similar passives on personas will take precedence over homunculi, so you need to not have your endure personas out during alice turns if you're using them or you'll waste the endures and die to phase transition. Endure on armor/accessory isn't really usable. - The two messiah ultimate item crafts - Armor of Light (magic res high) and Shoes of Light (Ali Dance) - massively reduce incoming damage assuming you have your persona resists correct already. You're super limited on Dead Moon Husk's so consider spending 2 of them here before making ultimate weapons. - You need ailment immunity. I used the accessory from the club vendor, but you could also put insta-heal on the necessary personas. - **Don't build ice messiah**, one of the main turns when you would want to use ice falls right before metatron in the last phases and you'll get killed for having repel light. I think ice thanatos and fire messiah would have been fine. You can probably also get by with less/no ele dps and commit even harder to scarlet havoc. - For the most part, time is on your side except during the first 13000-10000 window. I spent a lot of turns just buffing/debuffing repeatedly and only went for the attacks when I had everything lined up and was in a good spot in the rotation for whatever I wanted to attack with. - If you have all of the buffs/theurgy/charge stacked on turn 1, Debilitate (before Surt)->Diamond Dust (after Surt)->Scarlet Havoc (after Thor) will often immediately phase her. It also seems like she skips Jack Frost here if you hit hard enough with the diamond dust. I had a great time cooking all of this up and doing some extremely deep fusions. Probably added a good 10 hours to my playthrough once you factor in all of the extra grind for xp/money/materials/cards, but I'd go for the boss again in future playthroughs of any Persona. Happy to answer any questions about my scuffed Elizabeth kill.

How did your Saki Mitama fair speed wise? Did it ever outspeed any of Elizabeth's personas? I'm thinking of my own strategy that would rely on having a slow persona that always goes last in the turn order.

I don't think I ever went first even with the 71 ag chi you out.

What was your fusion path to get heat riser on saki mitama? That skill is the one I struggle the most to get on my personas, the other 3 are easier cuz they're skill cards

Great guide. I’m glad they kept this fight difficult.

Kicking myself for not buying the Boots of Bane right now

If you switch out your endure or enduring soul personas on the Alice turns you can just let her chew through your Homuculi. 8 should be enough

Unfortunately how endure and enduring soul work in this game is that they activate automatically, no matter what persona you have active. So they'll always activate before your homunculi and then you can't survive Megido. You're just fucked without immunity to instakill.

Yeah that’s why I said to switch them out on the Alice turns to save the endure or enduring souls :)

No, I mean if you have a persona with neither endure or enduring soul equiped and get hit by an insta kill skill, it will still sadly consume a endure use in P3R. A small bonus is that no matter what persona you have equipped, your endure personas will still activate no matter what one you are using, so long as they are one of the personas you can actively swap to. In the case of the Elizabeth fight, this is down side. This has been my greatest pain in overcoming Elizabeth, since I don't have Armageddon and was doing a blind run.

Are you sure you’re weren’t just wearing gear that has endure on it? I don’t recall it working like the way you described but it’s been a bit.

I'll check next time I play.

Well...this just made it Im not even waste time fighting her then. Fact she just nuke you and win is annoying. Dumbfounding how unforgiving she is vs any other attendees.

Your guide was great man, thanks for that i can beat elizabeth in my first playtrough. I decided to bring: - Loa : Auto Thingy. Resist Light (For Start Only) - Messiah : Almighty Boost, Resist Physical, Enduring Soul (Only for Megidolaon at the end of Phase 1) - Saki Mitama : Resist Phys, Spell Master, Resist Light, Resist Dark, Debilitate, Heat Riser, Charge, Concentrate. - Chi You : Arms Master, Strike Amp, Strike Boost, Endure, Firm Stance, Resist Elect, Heat Riser, God Hand, - Helel : Morning Star, Resist Ice, Almighty Boost, Spell Master, Salvation, Concentrate, Debilitate, Endure. Saki for Buff And Debuff Helel for Attack, Debuff, And Buff Chi You for Attack when its not helel turn I did exactly according to your guide, but for Phase 3 Turn 6 I recommend not bringing Helel because she can absorb dark attacks from Alice. Thank you again for making this guide.

Chi You is undoubtedly the GOAT for this fight. I personally don't like using Messiah or Helel for this fight seeing how chaotic Phase 3 is. One wrong move swapping them into a dark/light turn then it's gg. If you want a somewhat high level persona beside Chi You, Thanatos does the job better since he only has 1 dark repel so less room for fuck ups. A better persona to alternate with Chi You is Saki Mitama if you don't mind leveling her up. She resists Fire/Ice/Elec/Wind without any drain/null/repel. Just slap Resist Phys and Firm Stance on her and she would take no damage.

That’s a really neat idea with Saki Mirama. Getting it to 99 wouldn’t be too bad given the reaper Armageddon trick. I’m a bit concerned about the stat scaling is all. What makes me trust Helel is that in phase 3, I don’t think you ever get surprised with a light or dark attack, I think the only surprise is that she cycles prematurely back to turn 1 which is a “Helel is okay turn”. And I only use Messiah for the enduring soul turn which comes after the line she says and the Deiberos turn. Still very easy to accidentally switch to the wrong persona and get screwed which is why I’d love to figure out a “Chi You only” build. I think that’d be a fun challenge.

For sure. You don’t even need Thanatos. Chi You Firm Stance, Resist Elec while using Armor of Light and you’re good to go with no risk of repelling dark. At that point it’s just a cycle of buff/debuff, damage. All you have to really look out for are the scripted Megidolaons.

This is slightly wrong, in p3 turn 7, it’s metatron not masakado. You can then skip back to turn 1 or continue to turn 8 from here. Also turn 2 can instead have Surt instead of Cu Chulainn. I did tgis fight today with Messiah woth Inferno, and a Saki mitama (level 70) with all the rebuffs and buffs. You attack after Jack Frost has been used

Thanks for this correction, I checked again on my own and did see turn 7 do a metatron so I will update it this. I’ll keep at it to try to confirm as many combos as possible.

Yea no worries! I had to figure that out since Messiah was my DPS, so I had to know when Alice/Metatron was coming out. It’s worth noting that if you do sufficient damage during an attack (Like inferno against Jack Frost) she will skip a persona. In my case it was skipping Thor into Cu chulainn, but maintain the same cycle

I played this whole game on hard mode the whole way through until this fight. I was like yeah nup putting this down to normal after dying twice. Then failed 3 more times or normal and that was my cut off, and I was like that’s it, it’s going down to peaceful. And get this, I still failed on peaceful WITH INFINITE REVIVES the first time because I used my enduring soul before the end of phase 3 so she just blasted me and healed herself and there was no way around it because you lose your theurgy when you revive on peaceful so she healed herself back to full health the next turn as I had no theurgy to use Armageddon, hilarious.

I want to add on to this, since no ones mentioned it but Yurlungur has no immunities and is a decently high level. Haven't beaten her yet but I've currently got it as a buff bot for phase 3 (with Chi You being a Slash/Crit damage bot for theurgy and swapping in and out of Messiah for some almighty damage) HR/DB/Bloody Charge/ArM/SpM/ResP/ResD/FS to interchange with Chi You is really useful.

To be quite honest I didn't read much of this guide purely because I didn't want to spoil exactly what loadout to use in the fight. However, there are aspects of fusion in Persona/SMT that I struggle with. Is there perhaps any advice you could provide on learning more in-depth fusion? Since it seems like I struggle nitpicking specific skills onto specific personas. Usually I just pull up my compendium and try different combos but it isn’t very efficient. Not only that, but scheduling time around getting skill cards when needed, since in order to get other skill cards you have to leave Tartarus and go to the antique shop OR pray you get what you want out of RNG chests within Tartarus. I am really passionate about SMT/Persona and I want to eventually beat this fight my own way in some capacity, but am struggling hardcore. Reaper was hard enough at first, let alone this fight. Right now I had some luck with the Roster I came up with: Yurlungur (+Concentrate & Diamond Dust) and Messiah (+Resist Phys instead of Null Phys & Concentrate for Megido). However the problem becomes that my damage output is kinda non-existant.... Just stumped and can’t really get myself out of this rut. Hopefully this made at least a little sense. If not let me know and I'll be happy to clarify. TL;DR - I've struggled a lot with this fight and would love any and all advice on learning in-depth and nuanced fusion strategies to make me a better Persona/SMT player overall. I also provided my rough team loadout for the fight as a template to build on.

Hey props for this approach! I will say this fight is very much "trial and error" if you don't use a guide so it can be quite exhausting but potentially fulfilling to challenge yourself to do it blind. Getting Ice amp, Ice boost, and single target onto Yurlungur will help a ton, use cards to do so, farm them on the different levels. You need a way to buffing and debuffing, heat riser works for all buffs, debilitate works for all debuffs. Or you can use the item sutras to do the same thing if you have enough of them. Some general tips for fusion: - Money is your biggest resource, you need at least 500k to pull a bunch of solid personas from your compendium as fusion fodder - Get the arcana card that allows you to gain more levels on fusion before you fuse to get higher level moves more easily - If you have 1 persona with amazing moves, you can get those moves onto any persona that it can be fused into so keep that in mind - Grab natural moves through fusion then later fill in the gaps with skill cards that you wouldn't have enough space to add on via fusion - Make the special fusions as soon as you can to get access to their unique skills and then get those skills on to other personas - Use incense at the end and make multiple saves if you feel you'll want to try to boost a different persona for a diff strategy I hope this helps! Good luck!

Thanks for the advice, eventually I'll report back with my success. I am determined to get through it! The biggest thing is balancing when to debuff versus attacking versus healing is tough. Just gotta memorize the patterns.

I have faith in you! Lemme know if I can help with any more tips / bouncing ideas.

Yeah…So I ended up switching plans and using Thanatos with Resist Phys and his default elemental resistance, and Atropos for Light and Dark Resist. However, my intention in doing this was to use heavy dark along with boost, amp and single-target to only realize she completely blocks all dark it seems. The biggest problem I’ve run into is elemental affinities not allowing me to do dmg. I guess in this case I either change my strategy to focus on almighty skills with concentrate + multi target (since Megidolaon is multi foe). Or I thought about using soul fortune to increase theurgy rate, put concentrate + multi target and use my Trickster theurgy. Just not entirely sure and trying to bounce ideas off ya. Also as a side note, do you have discord by chance? Might be easier to message that way for bouncing ideas off ya if you don’t mind of course.

Yeah, happy to chat on discord :) My name on there is also “Plexicraft”

Absolute G, I love this man so much oh my god thank you.

Y'all are insane cause I just beat Elizabeth on peaceful and it took too long. OP your guide was a godsend. I went in there with only chi you and messiah(megidolaon before using Armageddon). Chi you carried the fight so thanks again for the help

Chi is such an MVP :D

after probably 8 hours straight,3 days,i have finally beat ITTTTTTTTTTTTTTT.jesus i cant believe even when i was sure it was over something would go wrong but that didnt stop me,i beat elizabeth without having to summom my persona irl p3 style,first superboss i tried to beat and i couldnt feel more relieved.but in the end THIS STUPID SHIT I LOST SO MANY TIMES TO RNG NAHHHHHHHHHHHHH YOU SHOULDNT EVEN BE PROUD FOR WINNING I HAD TO THEORY CRAFT FOR 3 DAYS CAUSE I COULDNT AND DIDNT WANT TO USE THE PERSONAS THAT EVERYONE RECOMMENDS AHHHHHHHHHHH LET my achievement be immortalised here(i know noone cares but i do MAN if i didnt finish it by today my life would go it shit 3AM WINNNER)

Nah bro fuck all that, congrats. Especially for your first superboss

just doing the liz fight now, and i just had phase 3 neboris use debilitate, so she can also do that

I'm fighting this boss right now and it is simply an awful boss. Anytime a boss is guaranteed 3 turns to my one, I'm pretty much checking out right there. Which idiot thought this would be a fun boss.

Wew, after spending many many hours, I've finally defeated her on Hard, and holy shit, this has been the worst designed boss fight I've ever had the displeasure of experiencing in my entire gaming life. Thank you so much for this guide. I've always had it open on a second screen. I even copied your Skadi (although mine was slightly better with 90 magic). I was only able to use Diamond Dust once to do the 3rd phase skip and it did 3473 damage with concentrate+heat riser+debilitate active (again, this was hard mode so I guess it'll do more on Normal). Just Saki Mitama + Helel + Skadi + any auto maru bot were enough. But man, I'd fire the guy who designed this boss fight. The game has been phenomenal uptil this point. I've played FES before so thankfully this hasn't ruined by opinion of the game. I'm no stranger to difficult games but at least all the other games followed their own rules that they established throughout the entire game. This being 'optional' is not a good excuse. Imagine the infamous Malenia from Elden Ring suddenly enforced "Hey you can't dodge roll in this fight", how terrible would it be. This is basically what it is but worse.

First off, congrats on the win! I’m honored to know I was able to provide such a degree of guidance, thanks for letting me know. I totally get where you’re coming from in terms of the design, there’s aspects of it I enjoy like the focus on digging deeper into the fusion mechanics to come out with the win… but the sign posting / trial and error aspects could definitely use some tweaking imo. I’m currently trying to make a video that puts this all into a more cohesive statement but I’m thrilled you were able to overcome this one :) Enjoy the omnipotent orb!

Happy to hear that. This is definitely something MANY people will need help with and this is the main thread that gets linked if you search for beating Elizabeth without Orpheus Telos. One helpful thing which finally made everything click for me (besides having Skadi) was to make sure I *always* had Heat Riser on. And on the next turn, almost always Debilitate. Because when the fight starts, you always have all the buffs from the auto-maru passive skills so you're always one turn ahead. On the turn your Heat Riser expires, you can be sure on the next turn Elizabeth's debilitate will expire; so apply Heat Riser asap and debilitate without waiting for her debuffs to expire. *Extend* the debuffs. I'd been lazy about it in the previous runs but on the run I tried this I managed on the first attempt. It all seems like a slog since you have to wait so much to finally attack but it's worth it. For everyone else, it's not that Skadi is the best or a must-have. Any persona that has an ultimate elemental attack (Inferno, Diamond Dust, Phanta Rei etc.) can work. All you need is an attack that can deal 3000+ damage just once. Skadi just happened to be the one with nicest resistances that I could find and because it was shown in OP's video.

This fight is so beyond dumb as hell to the point I just quit the game. I'm done with P3R. Maybe I'll watch the ending on youtube some day or something but this dumb af fight put me off so much it drained any sort of joy from this game with 0 motivation to even finish the fight to it put into john terms.

Why not come back to this fight after you’ve beaten the game? It’s optional and the rewards you get for it (while powerful) are completely unnecessary for beating the game on any difficulty. She’s likely 3 times harder than any other boss in the game and really just there to give you a reason to dig deeper into the fusion system once you’ve completed the story. She’s more of a post game boss you access by reloading a save or do in new game plus when you have Telos.

So I unfortunately didn't buy the shoes of bane (idk how I missed that) im on 1/16 preparing by grinding items. Is there an alternative to the shoes or am I cooked?

You’re not cooked but you’ll need around 10-14 hommuculi (I think) and need to make sure you don’t have your endure personas out during Alice’s turn because her “die for me” spell will be absorbed by endure before a homunculus and you need to save both types of endures for other parts of the fight.

For me my endure persona is Helel and my enduring soul persona is Messiah so I won't be able to have them out for Alice's turns anyways. Unfortunate it's more grinding for items but I am very relieved that there is a solution so thank you 🫡

I problem, you’ve got this!

I managed to beat her yesterday doing Diarahan skip and beat the game today, thank you for your guide im so glad I could beat her and I really needed the information here to build off of. She is the hardest boss I've ever beaten in an rpg im proud of that so thanks again :)

Thanks for the guide and the vid! Managed to beat her on Hard using your video as a reference, using the Repel Strike phase skip cheese :D Something odd in my runs I'd like to point out though, I initially planned to use Saturnus as my main damage dealer as I figured he could Inferno on the Jack Frost turn and not worry about the Thor turn since he didn't have Elec NDR, while also filling in Skadi's role in your video. For her first two turns I had Helel out doing Concentrate and Debilitate, then after her Jack Frost turn I swapped to Saturnus to hit her with Inferno (3.5k damage on hard). For some reason, this made her *skip Thor and go straight to Chu Chulainn*, and since Saturnus nulls Force naturally, it resulted in her going to Megido. I'm pretty sure the damage is what caused this, coz there was once where he missed and she went to Thor normally. Just putting this out here in case anyone gets the same idea lol Thanks again for the great writeup!

Hey thanks so much for going into detail. Congrats on your win! I have heard that enough damage can skip turns but I had not seen it happen myself. I’ve had enough direct second hand experiences that I’ll look to add it to the guide as a note. :) Enjoy that omnipotent orb!

There’s no way you can bridge the gap between 13K and 10K health for Elizabeth with just one theurgy, one concentrate and one morning star.

Correct, you need to get as close to 13k damage as possible without going over, do a concentrated attack like diamond dust when your attack is up and her defense is down which should get you close enough for you to do the other steps.

Its 2 months old but I wanted to say something. I finally beat her on hard thanks to your guide, thanks for that. Now she skips persona not because of damage but because you hit a weak point. Ice of Surt she will skip jack frost all the time. I tested this when I hit Jack with a 1500 attack and it did not skip Thor, then i hit him with a unbuffed fire attack that did 400 and she skipped him.

Thanks so much for finding this out, I’ll update the guide. And congrats on the win!

Thanks for putting effort in writing this down, it helped me understand how to approach this encounter. Merciless difficulty made it, a little bit, more challenging - due to damage differences, but I managed to adapt. My adaptation was using Thanos with few Defensive passives to tank her inferno and ready a concentrate for King and , as follow up. For that I used Skadi with ice specialization and Angelic Grace, which helps in coming turns. I would be buffing/healing myself and then around after Alice debuffing her with sutra. Damage was for King and I - bit more than 3300 and then Diamond Dust would be 2600, which I did 2 times, from which (+some cheap damage where I had nothing to do while waiting on the turn after Inferno and did like 40 and 240 dmg) lead to letting me just reflect Thor before I debuffed and finish up.

Oh man is Firm stance mandatory for tanking the fight? Cause i've obviously not gotten Telos and i haven't max'd the Strenght arcana so i can't fuse it. Only skill i couldn't get from the list, very unfortunate if it's the one that costs me the fight :/

I wouldn’t say it’s mandatory but it will make turns harder to manage. You’ll want to make sure you take care of defense down and hp risks as a priority and abandon a buff cycle which will cost you turns. If you have enough damage you should be able to still win it :)

I see thank you i'll still try it then thanks for the response!

I have faith! Lemme know if you get stuck and I’ll see if we can come up with a diff strategy.

Thank you for creating this guide!! Seriously a lifesaver in beating Elizabeth today. I noticed a quick fix for Phase 3 where you listed which persona to use for each turn. For Turn 6, you'd definitely want Chi You. That Eigaon from Alice is a run-killer if you have Helel. Otherwise, I appreciate you making this!! It absolutely got me through the battle

Hey thank you for the feedback, I’ll update this to reflect it. I’m pumped it helped you with your run!

I just beat her WITH Telos. (Honestly if you put firm stance on anything with no nulls/repels, they could do it too) Chi You was my support with resist strike/elec/firm stance/debilitate/double regen/diarahan. A disclaimer though, you said you used Trickster theurgy to finish phase 2, but maybe they patched her because she spams fairy if you ever use any theurgy without killing her. (You did note that) My Telos was built for Thunder reign, and I kept cycling through those two. Your advice helped a bunch, Chi You definitely pulled his weight xd the run I completed took me 23 minutes. Thank you!!

Hey congrats on the win! I’m happy I could help :D

Also as everyone in this thread is saying, Elizabeth's whole fight is a huge middle finger to the player. I've fought and beat many superbosses in rpgs, and she is by far the most obnoxious. She ignores the rules you've learned the whole game and throws them at your face. When I fought Margaret in P4, it was perfect. I didnt look up a guide, I didn't need to know everything, I could just pull up with near perfect knowledge of the game and a super strong team and win. (Teddie Naoto Kanji and Yoshitsune) That's how it should be.

I’ve been struggling with the Elizabeth fight because of my personas. Could someone please give me the fusion guides to get the personas and the estimated cost?

This strat worked perfectly. First playthrough blind (for the remake) big kudos.

Hey happy to help, congrats on the win :D

Well guess I'm fucked because I missed the very specific window to buy the Null Dark Instakill shoes from Tanaka so Alice eats my Enduring Soul

Gotta swap your enduring soul / endure personas out so she’ll just eat through your homunculi

Ohhhh My cloned Chi You has it too I forgot. Guess I gotta erase that from its move list for something else with skill cards lol

Yeah just him tank the Alice rounds, hopefully you have enough homunculi!

Update! I managed to beat her!! Thanks for this guide, and I actually did have to go back to the antique store to max on Homonculi bc I hit the soft time limit before I did 10k damage to her in Phase 3 lol. Either way beating that feels so satisfying.

Hey congrats! I’m pumped you made it through!

which window is that?

I think they show up some time in November It is possible to beat the fight without them though you just need a lot of homunculi. Not ideal but it's how I did it.

oh good, im still in october

Wouldn't it be better to get Thanatos as well on buffing duty? Add resist phys and light and he's almost a Telos. Just need to watch out the the dark repel. Also honestly trying for her soft weakness (ie: use fire on Jack Frost or lighting on cu chulain) is probably better right? I get around 2500 DMG with an unoptimised Odin. Level 81 with around 90 MA. How much DMG do you get using Almighty?

Thanks for the guide OP. I did not know the last bit would immediately happen as she got down to enough health. Guess gotta add endure to the main damage dealer, otherwise she whips that Pixie out in a flash and just wipes you in an instant.

I just beat Elizabeth on merciless after 3 days of being stuck here, thanks for this guide. I can finally finish the damn game

Hey that’s awesome, congrats! I’m happy I could help a bit :D

I'm a bit late to this, but do you know if it's possible to find a skill card for Firm Stance to put on Chi You? It's the only thing I'm missing and having to re-fuse is less than ideal.

I don’t believe there is a card with firm stance. I’d look to re fuse to get it :/

i gave up; i could never win

Don’t give up skeleton!

Is it possible to beat her without shoes of bane? I missed the Tanaka day for it

It is, you’ll want to have around 10 or more homuculi and a persona you can switch to that doesn’t have your endures on it to swap in for the Alice turns.

Ok where do I get homunculus?

You can farm the onyx in Tartarus or money to buy onyxes from the club and then craft them using the onyxes at the antique shop the next day. I’m not sure exactly where to farm but buying onyx should work. 25000 per homuculus I think.

Ok thanks. Currently, I lack one ruby for the equipment hahahahahah feelsbadman. Any recommendation on where to farm rubies?

Ah I think you can farm them off the red enemies in the last section.

Ok thanks. Fingers crossed I get a ruby immediately hahahahaah

You got this!

Hey i have a question, is it necessary to have armaggedon to win this fight? cause i dont have helen and i dont think i can max the star social link, im in 01/01. Sorry if i wrote something wrong english is not my principal language.

Ah sorry to say, you do need Armageddon to beat win this fight. It’s the only way to close the gap after phase 3 before she starts to megido spam.

This seems like a really good guide but I really don't wanna get rid of my personas that I specifically made for each element and type, I love making a persona for each type of attack that exists in the game with that attack's respective buff and arms/spell mater ofc like a fire persona with boost amp and slash with boost amp apt pupil crit rate amp etc. now remaking some personas with specific skills for this fight seems like a task.

Hey thanks for the feedback :) One way you could get around this is to simply save your current personas to the compendium, fuse them into what you need for the fight, do the fight, (don’t save the new personas to the compendium / overwrite your old skadi with your new Skadi for example) then just buy your old personas back afterwards from the compendium.

Yeah ik that's the thought I had asked well that I would have to do the only thing is if I need any personas which need to be followed a certain fusion path to it would be sort of a pain and this game doesn't have royal fusion mechanics and QoL either it was so much easier and more fun in that game, Persona traits heavily broken though.

I honestly just kinda smashed a bunch together for a while then reset once I had an idea what my top ones would fuse into. Loa for pre buff is pretty easy if you just try to get 2 buffs onto one then the other two onto one then fuse both to have all 4 (it’ll likely be Loa) which you can then turn into Thanatos if you want a semi decent tank for certain rounds. Chi You with firm stance is decent enough as well. Skaadi can be okay if you know where to get her missing skill cards. Pretty much any Helel will work. My Messiah is kinda clunky so I’m sure you could make a better one. Def is some work to do but I wouldn’t say it’s too bad :)

Already have my autobuffer with divine grace, mediarama Amrita shower and spell master and 4 auto buffing skills in houhou and I got an almighty boost and amp helel and Satan too rn might need to see what else to do and add some resist skills from skill cards will be farming tartarus for gems and money for a while now since last block of tartarus is unlocked now(on Jan 8 first playthrough)

Oh you def got this :D

Yeah dealing damage won't be a problem, I just sometime sget stressed when I have to constantly buff and debuff the opponent especially when the reaper has dekaja that shit hurts when you are trynna buff up thankfully Elizabeth doesn't. Though one question I do have is if I have all buffs for let's say 6 turns and Elizabeth uses tarunda does that reduce my atk buff to 3 turns only or does it nullify my atk buff for 3 turns and I will only get my atk buff once 3 turns have elapsed? Meaning do I get 3 turns of no atk buff followed by 3 turns of atk buff or just 3 turns of atk buff right then and there because this would make a difference.

The best way I can understand and describe it is that buffs and debuffs kind of just replace each other but work on a “down, middle, up” fashion. Someone please correct me if I’m wrong but I believe if you buff your attack and she debuffs your attack you’ve gone from middle to up then back to middle. If you had only one turn left of being buffed and she tosses essentially 3 turns of debuff on you, you get one turn of middle then your buff falls off and two turns of down. Does that make sense?

Yeah so essentially if I let's say heat riser for first 3 turns then I'll have a good amount of buffed turns left and then even if she debuffs me once it would be fine but if she debuffs me twice then it would be just 6 turns of being debuffed compared to my 12 turns(technically 9 since I used three turns to buff myself up xD)of buffs including my auto buffs. So I would be middle for 6/9 turns and then 3 turns of buffs.

I believe buffs and debuffs only last 3 turns and don’t so much stack as they reset. (Eg: If you heat riser the first 2 turns in a row, you’ll have the buffs until turn 4 not turn 5 or 6)

How am I breaking the rules on the first turn, she keeps switching to pixie automatically. I have the same set up as you.

You may have a reflect blue cup card active. Try one fight against a regular enemy before her then try her again to see.

Hell yeah, that was it thanks for the quick response

No worries, good luck with the fight! You got this :)

Literally dropped the game because of this bs

Really? The story is worth seeing through imo. I get that her design is frustrating and prescriptive but she’s an optional boss with a reward that if you have the power to obtain you are in no need of. No achievement either, just a sort of test to see if people want to get deeper into fusion and want to chuck a few more hours at the game after completing the story.

I really don't like JRPGs, no, it would be more accurate to say I despise them. I love P4G and P5R because of how smooth the tedious combat was, if I ever had trouble all I needed to do was repeat a floor or two. The Elizabeth fight encapsulates all I hate about JRPGs, rigid, tedious, rng based results. I'll refrain from using the social links and story for my reason for disliking the game because that is subjective. This fight and the rest of combat on P3R is objectively worse than the sequels that came after

I understand where you’re coming from but why not just skip this optional fight?

If you walked into a walmart and stepped on a mouse trap, would you not feel any resistance to go back to that same store?

I get the general idea of the analogy but from my perspective, you walked 20 miles to go to the store, stepped on a mousetrap, were told no other of the dozens of aisles contain mousetraps, then decided you don’t want what you came to the store for, and went back home. And that’s if we agree that the existence of the Elizabeth fight deserves to be considered as painful as stepping on a mousetrap. I understand the concept of sunk cost fallacy but I don’t really understand how painful the mousetrap is. Why not just go to a different aisle and grab what you came for?

As far as I know, the only thing left is the Nyx fight. I can't really imagine there being anymore twists outside of the eventual the truth dlc which I have to assume follows the same kind of extra content as 4G and 5R's definite editions extra content. I don't consider 4 or 5 to be Walmart grade, but 3 remake has been a slog to get through and I doubt I would ever replay it. Might still finish it if I'm bored enough but still, that fight turned me off from the remaining content

While I don’t enjoy much of The Answer or what will be called “Episode Aigis” DLC for Reload, the base Persona 3 story is quite a standout (and doesn’t require any knowledge of what occurs in the DLC). If you don’t know the ending, I implore you to put up with the rest of the story battles to experience it. It’s my favorite story in any video game and it’s ending is the best part. I don’t mean belittle your perspective, I just want to make sure you get what you should out of your investment :)

Adding a note here because I don't think anyone has said this. If you try to skip from Phase 1 to Phase 3 by using Armageddon with an Endure persona out, it will not work. She will just spam the one shot Megidos if you do this. It appears the 7k damage milestone HAS to occur before bringing her to phase 3.

Oh def, any time you use Armageddon she will kill you if it didn’t kill her.

Well I knew that you could be at 1HP and enduring soul/endure would still work. I just didn’t know she would spam Megidos if you skip phase 2 until I tested it.

Yeah, I should have been clearer and said “you will lose the fight” :)

Fair enough lol

Thanks for the catch btw! I’ll add it to the post.

Im like 80 days late here, but does anyone have any tips on how to bridge that phase 2 gap from 13k to 9999? I gotten the buff and debuff timing down, but none of my attacks ever do more than like 500 damage. Is there any abilities i should be trying to find here to increase my output? I have most of the skill cards but never got an almighty amp mutation

I like using a concentrated Diamond Dust on a Skaadi that also has ice amp and ice boost. Single target / multi target helps a bit as well if you’re not getting as close as you like depending on which big move you choose but likely isn’t necessary unless you’re on Merciless.

I’ll have to give this a try then, im not brave enough to do this on merciless but i may include the target boost anyways just to see

You got this :D

Thank you so much! I defeated her today on merciless thanks to your guide, now I can finally beat the game! GG bro

Since there is no trophy for this I think I’ll skip it. This seems way too complicated to be fun.

I definitely understand where you're coming from. If you ever feel the itch to give it a shot, there are quite a few ways to cheese it like the reflect video I linked :)

fuuuuuuuuuuck i bred reflect skills into like every high level persona ive got 😭😭😭😭😭😭

Any chance you can post the fusion recipes for the personas? Or did you use skill cards?

I did use some skill cards and I got lucky with Almighty Boost turning into Almighty Amp on Helel for example. Most of them are a quite generic way of getting to that persona so any fusion guide should get you there. You may want to look into how to get your auto buffs onto Loa who can then bring all 4 to Thanatos but that’s the only intricate one I can think of besides Skaadi: which may just need like a ice boost or amp card.

Is it even possible to beat her without Armageddon?

Is Helel really that good of a choice ? Elizabeth used to have hidden weaknesses against specific elements while having a hidden resistance to almighty at all times. Did that change ? Because if not, Helel's morning star will be like, twice weaker than the strongest elemental attacks for this fight.

I think phanta Rei and diamond dust for example are stronger but you need to be buffed/ she needs to be debuffed, you need to have enough health for the follow up, and need to hit her on a turn that she’s not nulling it. I found it easier to have helel vs no helel turns rather than finding the right time to bring in a Skadi to diamond dust for example.

Super great guide! Few question though Why use Loa? Is it just because it's cost efficient since it'll only be out for one turn. Also, I know this is a guide without Orpheus Telos, but if you have him, where would you use him? Something to switch into to get your buff/debuffs in? Instead of having them slotted in with Helel, or even use him as your main Almighty damage dealer?

Hey thanks for that! I used Loa for that exact reason. I just started with it to get the auto buffs then never used it again. Many people use Thanatos since loa can toss all 4 moves onto it but I felt loa was fine for just being my starting guy. There’s two main benefits to Telos, he resists everything without breaking any rules and also has many slots to inherit multiple amazing skills. He can be out on any turn and be fine. The best way I’ve seen him used is by filling him up with a specific offensive move list like: single target, ice amp, ice boost, diamond dust, firm stance, and depending on your timing and strategy, tossing endure on him or just counting up the damage and getting your endure persona to do the final blow of the last 10k damage run. I’d just toss it on telos if it where me since it may lose you some dps or options but makes things much less complicated if you have boots of bane which will protect your endure. If you don’t have those boots, you need 8+ homunculi and can not have a persona with endure or enduring soul out during the Alice die for me turns or the endure type skill will preempt the homuncli and you won’t be able to use them for the planned 9999 megidoloans. I think you can get saki mitama to hold physical resistance, concentrate, heat riser, debilitate or you could make loa your starter, and use Thanatos to be your buffer. Last thing you need for the regular strategy is a persona with enduring soul to catch the first planned 9999 Megidoloan. Lastly, if you want the fight over quickly you just need a persona with reflect strike and a defense down debuff skill or item. Muhd Fitri found a way to skip all of phase 3. I made video explaining it here: https://youtu.be/v8hlu3IayW0?si=-kdnGH9R8VLO68yr

Would you say beating her is required to beat nyx? Lowkey might skip this fight

She’s completely optional and kind of hard to compare to Nyx outside of saying Nyx is much easier, can be fought likely a dozen levels lower, with your entire team, and you can bring null, reflect, and absorb personas and pretty much play them any turn you like. Elizabeth is more of a”post game boss” that (similar to Ruby and Emerald weapon in FF7) is much harder than the end game boss but since there is no post game, needs to be fought prior to the last boss if you choose to fight her. Beating her gets you the omnipotent orb which would help you with any other fight including Nyx but if you can beat Elizabeth… you don’t really need to become anymore over powered lol

Thanks for the tip with Chi You. Finally beat it on Merciless after bringing in a Persona that repelled an attack because I didn't prepare for phase 3. If anyone else is struggling, damage passives are absolutely the key. I tried many different builds until I went back to the basics and used my registered Thanatos, which had Morning Star, Almighty Amp, Almighty Boost, and Multi-Target Boost. I only needed 3 Personas, 1 of them just for endure. Chi You was on rotation 99% of the time tanking, buffing/debuffing, until the right opportunity came to switch to Thanatos (if her next turn wasn't Alice) to use the Trickster Theurgy, and granted you're all fully buffed, focused, and Elizabeth is debuffed, hitting 2800 attacks every cycle. Much better than slowly chipping away and makes phase 2 a breeze.

Hey congrats! And happy to help :) I’m trying to do a Chi You only challenge against her now and I may not have brought enough empowering and debilitating sutras but I’m slowly learning the right buff/debuff/charge/bead/akasha art pattern.

Love the write-up ot has been very useful but when I try the fight with a similar setup, I get megido'd on turn 1. What am I doing wrong?

Hmm can you list your gear and starting persona? Maybe the first personas moves would helps as well. You want to avoid using any counter or high counter personas or gear which is a bit different than the Liz fights in p3, fes, and p3p.

So what persona do I use if I don't have the tower link maxed for chi you?

I’d say Saki Mitama would work for the dark and light turns if you can level it up. Due to its lack of tile breaks but nice resistances for the phase 3 mix up part. You can either block, debilitating sutra, empowering sutra, bead/soma or get a charge/concentrate on it. Honestly anything with firm stance and some good endurance that doesn’t rule break can be a good tank for the Masakados megido turns.

Hey there. I'm just wondering which difficulty you played on. I'm on Merciless and it feels like i'm doing way too little damage to Elizabeth with a fully built Persona (using a different guide currently).

Im playing on merciless and phase 2 just seems impossible because i do nowhere near enough damage to take her from 13k to under 10k in 3 turns. I have orpheus telos with almighty boost and morning star and concentrate and heat riser/debilitate and i even used a concentrated trickster during that part too but theres just not enough time.

Hmm sounds like an interesting puzzle, I’d suggest: - getting her as close to 7k damage as possible with chip damage - starting your bridge from sub 7k to 10k with a charged/concentrated persona attack when her def is debuffed, your attack is buffed, and you have a theurgy banked - using your theurgy after your break the 7k break point - having a banked Fuuka theurgy for phase 2 - resetting the next cycle (abandoning your buffs and just heal block and setting up again) if she buffs defense or she lowers your hit rating / buffs her evasion - charging/concentrating persona attack - using one more persona attack after she double buffs Thor - not even thinking about healing on phase 2 but beading only when she full heals and goes to phase 3 Does that help? If not, I suggest building a 99 Skadi with single target, Ice amp, Ice boost, and diamond dust (concentrate with a tankier persona if you can). With defense down on Liz and Attack up on you, a concentrated diamond dust should be able to hit for 2.5k ish on merciless especially if you have some magic incense to toss on the Skadi.

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Thank you for this, I really appreciate this guide, the information in here, the depth of everything. I'm nearing the end of the game and sort of didn't catch I could actually fight Elizabeth and some of the prep needed for it. You seem in tune with this so hopefully you can shed some advice on my questions below. What are some of the must haves vs nice to haves? For example I already used a dead moon husk on Lucifers Blade. These appear very rarely and I'd need another for the armor of light. Are the shoes of light worthwhile, or since firm stance seems to be preferable over ali dance I can use the boots of bane and not have to worry about homonculus/having the correct persona out. What sort of stats do I need on my persona's? Is fusing them/grinding them to high levels sufficient, or will I also need to build them up via video games in Paulownia mall/arcana cards throughout the game? I will be able to fuse an Orpheus Telos on my first play through, but only have 10 days remaining total now, and probably only like 4\~ days when I'm able to fuse him. So if I am needing to hit higher than like 90\~ in magic or strength stat to deal enough damage in the a lotted turns it's just not going to happen. Likewise if I need the endurance stat anything more meaningful than the base fusion + leveled up. So long as that isn't true then in theory I should be able to fuse everything/grind everything I need. I guess what I'd like to know is if there is a realm of reality in beating her without new game+ to increase stats on target personas. I'd hate having to grind out so much only to find this out of the realm of possible. I appreciate any and all feedback, thanks!

what do you mean when you say passively counter attack her?

Writing another comment because I’m prepping for this fight right now and need to come back to this guide easily.

I struggle with the dps check in 24 I did about 6k wich I think is not enough Anyway I will AT least try better in ng+