SMT V: Vengeance [CoV] - Glasya-Labolas (Low Level, No Fusion/Demon Modification, Hard)

Rules: 1. Hard difficulty, New Game. 2. No fusion or using essences to alter the skillsets of demons. 3. The Nahobino may only acquire skills from Proto-fiend essences, and essences used for his resistances may only be Proto-fiend essences, purchasable from the Cadaver's Hollow, or be from recruitable demons at or below the Nahobino's level. 4. EXP gain is limited to forced battles, Main Quest completion, and abscesses, minimized when possible. Additionally, abscess completion will be delayed as long as possible. 5. No Balms, Incenses, Sutras, Gospels, Grimoires, use of petrified demon statues, Omagatoki: Luck, or stat-boosting Miracles. 6. The Demon Haunt may not be used for stat boosts or items. 7. No use of the Skill Manifestation miracle. 8. Guest party members or demons may not be used when their level exceeds that of the Nahobino. 9. No Dampeners, Block skills, Tetrakarn, Makarakarn, Attack Mirrors, Magic Mirrors, or Luminescent Mirage. 10. No Taunt/Fierce Roar. 11. No Knowledge of Tools or Enhanced Summon. Glasya-Labolas is the first new boss of the Canon of Vengeance, which introduces us to the new character Yoko, who joins as a Guest character for this battle alongside Yuzuru. These two are powerful enough to win this battle without almost any difficulty, but the rules of my playthrough prohibit the use of any Guest party members or demons of a higher level of the Nahobino. This makes this battle much more difficult since the available demon selection up to this point leaves much to be desired. It’s still a pretty easy boss even with the sizable handicap, but victory isn’t a certainty depending on some luck-based factors. Glasya-Labolas only has two skills, Bouncing Claw and Dustoma, but may also gather Magatsuhi randomly which presents a legitimate threat. Bouncing Claw criticals can tear a team apart, so it’s necessary to guard with most party members when that happens. The poor demon selection is the real problem in this battle; the Nahobino is the only party member that can use Zio, and even he is hindered by MP consumption since there aren’t any Chakra Drops available by this point. Omagatoki: Critical is very valuable here, since the five available demons have a weak damage output without it. In this attempt, I struggled much more than usual due to several key instances of bad luck. A few turns after swapping Yuzuru and Yoko out to begin the battle, the Nahobino proceeded to miss a Zio on the Omagatoki: Critical turn, which set the stage for a much slower battle. While using Tarunda to keep the demons from being one-shotted by Bouncing Claw, the Nahobino didn’t have much MP to spare on Zio, so the demons ended up having to slowly chip down its HP. Normally, Glasya-Labolas should only survive until the second Omagatoki: Critical turn, but it took a good deal longer here because of the pivotal Zio miss. I ended up just sticking with this attempt since this is just about the only time you’ll ever see someone struggle with this battle. There were several times that the Nahobino only survived Bouncing Claws because of the new Rooted Soul passive, which is pretty great for the early game. Also, while there are two Elec Gems available before this point that were specifically added to the game for this battle, I chose not to use them since those can be pretty helpful for future bosses that are much tougher. I also could have bought some Elec Shards as well, but honestly those come at a steep price when you’re limited to the opening area and I didn’t anticipate having this tough of a time to begin with. One last thing to note is that I would normally kill Yoko off so she wouldn’t gain EXP when the Nahobino’s level is lower than hers, but that’s just kind of a pain to do here and it won’t matter anyway if I have her be unconscious for the Mermaid abscess instead.