Persona 5 Royal features a number of deadly foes, some of whom are completely optional encounters. One such encounter is the Reaper, a terrifyingly powerful foe who stalks Mementos and appears when the Phantom Thieves linger too long on any given floor.
Persona 5 Royal is a JRPG developed by Atlus and published by Sony. As the Phantom Thieves, players delve into another world formed from people's cognition to steal the distorted desires of humanity, while also trying to live a normal student life between adventures.
Beating the Reaper
The Reaper has always been a deadly foe in the Persona series, though its appearance in Persona 5 had a crippling flaw that would make it possible to kill it with minimal effort during Flu Season. This was changed for Persona 5 Royal, making the Reaper as dangerous as ever.
The Reaper is level 85, though a level 60 party is sufficient for fighting it as long as players are well-prepared and adequately equipped. The Reaper has no weaknesses and no resistances or immunities. Players should ensure that the Phantom Thieves are ambushed by the Reaper, despite this seeming counterintuitive, as this will cause the Reaper to only take one turn instead of two in a row whenever it gets a turn.
Ordinarily, the Reaper uses elemental attacks to target the party's current weaknesses, but this can be prevented by casting Makarakarn. Doing this causes the Reaper to fall back on its almighty attack, "Megidolaeon," but it will always charge before using it to boost the damage. As a result, players can take advantage of the turn it spends charging to buff up or attack and then guard on the turn it uses Megidolaeon to mitigate the damage.
Since the Reaper refuses to use other elemental attacks while Makarakarn is active, it will instead repeat the charge and Megidolaeon combo indefinitely.
Regular healing (preferably via the spell "Mediarahan" for maximum effect) makes it fairly easy to keep up the offensive while keeping the party alive.
Due to being ambushed by the Reaper, the normally very situational "Thermopylae" skill can be used to buff the whole party's attack, defense, and agility simultaneously. At the same time, the Reaper's lack of resistances and immunities allows each party member to unleash their most powerful attacks on it without issue.
When defeated, the Reaper will sometimes drop the Divine Pillar accessory, which halves all damage taken by the character equipped with it. The first time beating the Reaper will also unlock the "A Unique Rebel" trophy.
Persona 5 Royal is available now for Playstation 4. It's coming to Xbox Series X/S and PC on October 21, 2022.
