Playing nocturne, and I'm frustrated. I started on hard,

>>384661782
>after each new area I have to completely refuse my team to get strong enough to deal with the random encounters.
That's basically the gist of it. Sometimes your party will last longer than others, but generally you gotta adapt every few areas.
Make sure DemiFiend's going with Str as his main stat too, he'll hit like a freight train.

>>384661923
That feels so un-inspired, though. Are there any demons that ' scale ' and last long enough / learn good enough abilities at later levels to keep around?

Was matador a waste of a deathstone?

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>>384662213
>Are there any demons that ' scale ' and last long enough / learn good enough abilities at later levels to keep around?

>>384662213
>Are there any demons that ' scale ' and last long enough / learn good enough abilities at later levels to keep around?
Daisoujou. Don't know the spelling, but he's easily helpful all the way to the end of the game.
Surt and Thor are a relatively safe bet for massive damage with their special elemental attacks, but not for all enemies or bosses.
Yurlungur is literally a godsend with his resistances, but he's only available late into the game.

For the most part it's very much advised to keep fusing new demons when you start to struggle though. There are a few demons that'll help massively for certain areas, but later on just become average demons.

>Was matador a waste of a deathstone?
I don't know about a waste, but it's not like you're screwed even if he doesn't help.
I only ever used Daisoujou and Mother Harlot myself.

>>384662604
When will I get another deathstone? I fused matador over daisoujou because I was one level too low. I feel like an idiot.

>>384662839
Couldn't say man, it's been awhile. You will get more, though I can't recall if you get enough to fuse them all.
It'll be a lot easier if you just redo your party to suit the bosses you encounter, while trying to keep most damage types covered when heading through random encounters. Make MC STR with 1-2 magic spells of your choice, and then use the demons to cover more bases.

Also don't delete demons, ever. Or at least always keep track of what happened to your Pixie. It'll pay off later.

Hard mode in SMT games is usually a lot more tedious than normal difficulty, so... yeah. You're probably going to end up having to do a fair bit of grinding until you start to get access to the really good skills/demons.

If you're that early in the game, I'd honestly just recommend starting over on normal mode. The difficulty will start to even out at around the same point either way.

>>384663212
Wouldn't normal mode be too easy, since I'm used to hard, now?

What are the differences? Exp gain? Encounter frequency? I know you can't run.

>>384661782
>>384662213
Strength is garbage on Demifiend for the majority of the game, it doesn't really get amazing until like the final 5% of the game, early on and especially during the mid game a Magic focus is significantly stronger.

Demonwise Daisoujo pretty much ruins the entire game if you fuse him and throw stuff like Tetra-/Makarakarn on him, even if you don't he's still powerful enough to use until the very end of the game and you can get him incredibly early on.
The Koppa Tengu and Onkot evolution lines are both incredibly strong as well, you can honestly just get those two and then stick with them for the entire game, their evolutions give you all the skills you could possibly want and they have great resists.


>>384663795
Escape rate is locked to 10% success rate no matter what your stats are and shop/compendium prices are tripled are the two main things. Enemies hit a bit harder, crits and exploiting weaknesses have a higher modifier both for you and the enemies, and some boss scripts work slightly differently.
Hard Mode is a lot better balanced in general, the only caveat are the tripled macca costs for everything. Then again the game is incredibly easy to cheese with the normal prices so I can definitely see why they did that.

>>384662213
>That feels so un-inspired
What

>>384662213
Having to pay attention to what party members you use instead of just sticking with the same shitty starter pokemon from the beginning of your journey to becoming world champion feels uninspired to you?

>>384662213
I felt the same as Nocturne was my first SMT but you really have to treat your Demons as disposable sluts to fuse and replace whenever you get something better. With exception to the Pixie of course.

>>384664608
>>384664503
Using one demon because he's op.

>>384665430
You don't have Dante yet

>>384665430
It does kinda suck how overpowered Daisoujo is, yeah. So is rerolling for specific skill sets, abusing shop boxes to get infinite Incense, or scumming it up with sacrificial fusions using leveled demons though.

You don't have to do any of that to beat the game and I definitely wouldn't recommend using that shit for your first playthrough, Daisoujo and fusion scumming alone already make an otherwise pretty well balanced game trivial.

>>384665430
then don't use daisobro and stop complaining about how impossible the game is you faglord

>>384665841
don't call me a faglord, faglord.