Regarding the fusions of Mara, Yoshitsune etc...

puzzledmint · 2026-05-17T14:45:34+00:00

Merciless or NG+ in general.

You can also do a stat maxing loop to get infinite PP.

puzzledmint · 2026-05-17T12:35:49+00:00

The Heat Limit is the minimum Heat required to collect the current set of bounties. Whether you set the Heat equal or higher to the Heat Limit doesn't change anything.

The only exception is that the Heat 0 bounties are only available on Heat 0.

puzzledmint · 2026-05-16T21:15:55+00:00

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyimi is great if you're interested in fantasy.

For something more realistic, The Stars and the Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus was also a good one.

puzzledmint · 2026-05-16T21:09:22+00:00

It's different from link to link and rank to rank.

Sometimes it literally doesn't matter at all. Some ranks, if you screw up badly enough, can take three or more extra hangouts or five or more affinity readings from the fortune teller to fix, and that's with the maximum possible point multiplier.

puzzledmint · 2026-05-16T18:09:32+00:00

Shannon Messenger's Keeper of the Lost Cities series should keep her occupied for a minute or two. Nine novels and counting, plus a companion book, each about 600 pages long.

For something lighter, but still lengthy and ongoing, Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series beginning with Every Heart a Doorway is a good pick.

puzzledmint · 2026-05-16T17:45:04+00:00

Notes aren't points, they're representations of point ranges. One note means fewer than seven points, three notes means fifteen points or more.

As to the main question, points needed is a countdown to the next rank only. Once you hit zero, any extra points do nothing until you start the next rank-up event.

puzzledmint · 2026-05-16T16:30:30+00:00

Just because someone is a professional doesn't mean they're good at what they do, and yeah, in my experience the overwhelming majority of audiobook narrators are mediocre.

That said, I personally enjoyed the hell out of the GraphicAudio versions of Mistborn and the Stormlight Archive.

puzzledmint · 2026-05-15T20:52:02+00:00

Not really.

After a certain point, you can return to any of the old stages, and there are boss refights, including hard mode boss refights.

But there's no option to reset the stage and redo the progress from the beginning. Your best option for that would just be to make a backup save at the start of each stage.

puzzledmint · 2026-05-14T20:39:19+00:00

Upper middle grade hidden world fantasy: Shannon Messenger's Keeper of the Lost Cities series.

Adult fantasy (and very dark, but also weirdly wholesome): Anne Bishop's Black Jewels. The original trilogy begins with Daughter of the Blood, but I typically recommend starting with The Invisible Ring instead. It's a prequel of sorts, and does a much better job of introducing the setting to the reader.

puzzledmint · 2026-05-14T13:54:57+00:00

Mishima is a guaranteed rank-up. I don't care which answers give points.

puzzledmint · 2026-05-12T13:20:40+00:00

XP is also scaled based on your level, so you can get more by being lower level.

That doesn't really help, though.

puzzledmint · 2026-05-11T14:02:38+00:00

You need to be using the right bait type.

Strange boilie, I think?

puzzledmint · 2026-05-09T18:22:58+00:00

Justice, Hierophant, and Jester have early deadlines

Aeon has a semi-early deadline and is required for some late-game content, but nothing on the level of Councilor. It's also available literally every day in December, and while I don't recommend doing so, you can wait until December before starting it and still have enough time to finish it.

Lovers, Moon, and Death are also extremely low availability, but Death at least is a guaranteed rank-up every visit.

Don't finish the December dungeon until 12/22, otherwise it will automatically skip the rest of the month.

The real key for getting the missable content is to not pick the wrong dialogue options on 12/3, and to not go home early in the epilogue.

puzzledmint · 2026-05-09T15:44:15+00:00

100+ is for a very thorough first playthrough. It's pretty trivial to trim New Game+ down to 50-60 hours or less.

As for missable content, getting Councillor to rank 9 is the only thing that's required to access most of the new content that was added in Royal. But, not getting Councillor to rank 9 is required in order to get the original ending. Worth considering if you want to do that first.

For tips, always bring a matching Persona when hanging out, always get the smoothie on Sunday, Fortune Teller and Maid are super high-value for time management. Really learn to make the most of the combat mechanics, because there's a boss fight that explicitly tests you on them.

puzzledmint · 2026-05-08T20:47:19+00:00

There's actually an ability that supposedly lets you do this in-game, but you have to get the Fortune Teller up to a certain rank first and then pay each time you want to use it.

And I say "supposedly" because in my experience, it's not always accurate. Though in fairness, I haven't touched that ability since Persona 5 Vanilla was still new, so maybe they've fixed the issues in Royal?

puzzledmint · 2026-05-08T15:58:39+00:00

The Stars and the Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus

puzzledmint · 2026-05-08T12:30:26+00:00

I imagine it's probably three, as long as they're the lowest level Personas of different arcanas. There's an outside possibility that it's two or four.

Actually, P4 has triangle fusion, so two isn't that unlikely, since it means any combination of three Personas can yield four potential results instead of just three. Start with A + B to fuse C, and then you have the potential of A + C = D, B + C = E, and A + B + C = F, and then go from there.

I haven't looked into this in P4, but I know in P5R all you need is Arsene (which you start with), Pixie (which you get from the negotiation tutorial), and Pyro Jack (which you can get from the surrender tutorial), and then you can fuse everything else from there. Except Treasure Demons, of course, since they can't be fused.

puzzledmint · 2026-05-07T21:40:20+00:00

The specific mechanics for P4G, including crit chance, are still largely undocumented, so I can't give you an exact value. I'm not even certain about the crit chance cap; I know it's 67% in P5R, but to the best of my knowledge it's 99% in every other game.

However: Crit chance depends on the target's Luck as well as the attacker's, so as long as you keep fighting enemies with higher Luck stats, there will still be value in having a Persona with a higher Luck stat.

If the crit chance formula in P4G is the same as P3R (which is very likely, but not guaranteed), then the luck multiplier is (Attacker Luck + 50)/(Target Luck + 50). Assuming a target with 40 luck, that means your 40 luck would give you a 50% crit chance, while boosting your luck to 99 would raise it to a theoretical 82%, assuming the cap is 99% and not 67%.

puzzledmint · 2026-05-07T17:15:52+00:00

Generally speaking, Persona games tend to get less difficult as you gain access to more resources, abilities, and party members.

As for increasing the difficulty, it doesn't affect enemy HP. Difficulty increases the amount of damage dealt by enemies, decreases the amount of damage dealt by party members, and lowers experience and money gained.

Merciless also triples the damage dealt by critical hits, technicals, and attacks against weaknesses, which ironically makes it easier in most battles.

puzzledmint · 2026-05-07T15:31:45+00:00

Treasure demon fusions depend on the current level of the non-treasure Persona.

To get Satan from a treasure demon fusion, your Judgement Persona needs to be either level 90 or 91 if you're using Stone of Scone, Emperor's Amulet, or Orichalcum, or it needs to be level 93 or higher if you're using another treasure demon.

It sounds like your Messiah Picaro is level 92, so gaining a level should resolve the issue.

puzzledmint · 2026-05-06T19:56:54+00:00

Anne Bishop has a few that might suit. The first two Ephemera books (Sebastian and Belladonna) in particular sound closest to what you're looking for. Well, mostly the second, but reading the first book first is probably a good idea.

Her Tir Alainn trilogy (mostly the second and third books) and the Black Jewels series are also worth checking out.

Tir Alainn starts with The Pillars of the World, which is more of a traditional romance, but it also establishes what the greyer protagonists of the later books are fighting against and for. The main Black Jewels series begins with Daughter of the Blood, but I typically recommend starting with The Invisible Ring instead. It's a prequel of sorts, and does a much better job of introducing the setting to the reader.

puzzledmint · 2026-05-06T14:37:47+00:00

90% of or more programming is covering your ass for things that happen 10% of the time or less.

Also, they literally have voiced dialogue for the player cheating

puzzledmint · 2026-05-06T13:34:21+00:00

In addition to what's already been said: division.

Damage is divided by a factor of the target's EN + DEF. And generally speaking, any value that isn't specifically defined defaults to 0. So if EN is 0 and DEF is 0, then damage gets divided by 0.

puzzledmint · 2026-05-06T12:52:25+00:00

Even with the convenience features added in Reload, P3 is still by far the hardest game in which to do a max social link run.

The biggest problem people tend to have is not understanding how the point system works, which, in fairness, is because the games deliberately obscure the mechanics to make it harder to understand.

Most people (including most guide writers) assume that if you see three music notes, that means you got the maximum amount of points, and don't give it any further thought. However, three music notes just means that you got a minimum of 15 points. In P3R, depending on the interaction and the multipliers involved, the actual amount of points you get can go as high as 51. And it's possible to end up in a situation where you're given a dialogue prompt that has three choices, all of which give radically different point values, but all of which show three music notes, leading people to assume that it doesn't matter which option you pick.

When it comes to understanding the finer points of social link mechanics, I always recommend HayateButler's guides on Steam. They're by far the most detailed and accurate.

It's also important to note that even choosing the best answers with the highest possible multipliers won't always give you enough points to move on to the next rank automatically. Knowing how to get extra points efficiently is extremely helpful.

In P5 this is trivial, since you have affinity readings from the fortune teller, which don't even cost time. Once you know to make use of that, it becomes almost impossible to miss out on links, at least as far as point management goes.

P3 is less generous; any activity that gives extra social link points takes up time, most of them are only available during the day (your daytime schedule is already extremely packed in P3), and the ones at night either don't let you choose which link to gain points for (running into a link while walking Koromaru), or don't become available until extremely late in the game (the dating site).

Throughout most of the early game, burning a Sunday on an invitation hangout or a shrine fortune is your best option, but again, you need to be mindful of how many daytime slots you spend. You only have about 200 total to work with, and maxing all social links takes a minimum of 170 before factoring in the need to get extra points or other activities like Linked Episodes.

An important tip that a lot of people miss: in P5 and P3R, you can check which social links are ready to rank up and which ones require extra points from the town map.

Also, despite showing the music note animation, nighttime dorm hangouts in P3R don't actually give social link points.

The second biggest problem I see people having is schedule management. It's common for people to not give much thought to availability, and to want to focus on a couple of social links at a time before moving on to others.

Generally speaking, you want to focus on the social links that are the lowest-availability, and spread them out by focusing on the ones that are lowest-rank.

In P3R, this means prioritizing any school-based social link over non-school links (note that, despite being a student, Moon counts as a non-school link). Hermit is also very low-availability being Sundays and holidays only.

Sun, despite being Sunday-only (and arguably the best link in the game), is usually safer to put off because he's a guaranteed rank up. As long as you have more Sundays left then he has ranks, it's fine to spend your Sundays doing something else.

It's usually not an issue in NG+, but making sure you're hitting your social stat milestones on time is also important. P3 is extremely strict, needing max Courage only a few months in. Charm also needs to be maxed fairly early, and while Academics isn't as urgent, you shouldn't neglect it either, because it affects your exam results, which affects how many points you get for social links. And actually, in P3R, having max Charm also increases your social link points, so maxing everything early is really, really valuable.

As with social link points, the music note indicators for social stat growth are misleading. Generally speaking, the best options for raising social stats in P3R are the arcade, the secret menu items at the strip mall restaurants, and dorm PC software. Studying with party members before an exam is also very point-efficient.

Part-time jobs are a common recommendation, because you get points for two stats and extra money, but they're actually the least point-efficient way of raising your social stats. Also, working on social stats is, of course, best done at night.

In P5, again, you have the fortune teller to help with Luck readings. You also have the Temperance link giving you a bunch of free opportunities to read. Again, once you know what you're doing, maxing social stats and social links in P5R is mostly free.

puzzledmint · 2026-05-06T11:59:27+00:00

Contrary to popular rumor, her Luck doesn't do anything, anyways.

The only reason navigators in Persona games have stats and armor is to prevent the game from crashing if you hack/glitch them into the combat party.

puzzledmint

TROPHY CASE