Like we noted in our recent Light article, Dark personas also occupy the ‘instant death but no damage’ category of spells in Persona 3 Portable. This is unfortunate, because it will certainly lead to quite a few missed turns, but when the game throws otherwise very defensive enemies at you, and the only weakness that they have is Dark, then you’ll be thankful that you planned your fusions as well as you did. Wait, you’re telling us you didn’t plan too well, and that’s exactly why you’re here looking for advice? In that case, grab yourself one of the following Dark persona to help you on your way.
Credit to Cyrus917 on GameFAQs for the save file that allowed screenshots to be taken. Negative credit to developers that refuse to let screenshots be taken on Vita ports of PSP games.
Ghoul
You don’t need us to tell you how to get a basic Mudo spell, after all you can grab Alp or Lilim and do just fine there, but if you’re looking for something special towards the end of your first few jaunts into Tartarus, then Ghoul will do the job well. It might not have the prettiest of artworks, but it’ll do the job and do it well. Hey, at least you don’t have to learn a language before you can speak to it in this game, alright?
Mudo is present of course, which is the basic single target Dark spell, but it’s joined by Mamudo after a few levels, which is the group target version. In fact, in this early section the latter is probably the most useful that a group version of a Dark spell will ever be, because encounters will soon feature differing weaknesses and worse, an immunity to instant death skills. Finally, Ghoul actually features a few useful physical skills in Assault Drive and Gale Slash, the latter of which deals medium damage to all enemies, which is pretty useful at this point.
Persona Benefits
- Innately knows Mudo, the basic single Dark spell.
- Learns Mamudo at level 20, the basic group Dark spell.
- Learns the useful Gale Slash at level 23, which is a medium group target physical skill.
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Samael
No doubt quite a few players will find it unusual that such a detailed and biblical persona is available at such a low level, but P3P is full of surprises and this is one that we absolutely appreciate. Plus, it’s actually a tremendously powerful persona, so you’ve all the more reason to look at its wonderful artwork. Not only does it feature some excellent Dark skills, hence its position here in our article, but it’s also a great all round persona, thanks to including both damage and support options.
Regarding the Dark skills, Samael retains the base group Dark spell Mamudo, but it also upgrades the single target version to Mudoon, which ups the chance of instant death to 40%. This easily covers your mid game Dark requirements, but Samael builds on this further by also learning the powerful Almighty skill Megido, which deals a big chunk of damage to every enemy. So, if the Dark doesn’t kill them, the Almighty will, and he can even debuff the Agility of the entire enemy team with Masukunda! All told this makes Samael an excellent persona to have around the team in the mid game, and the very best option for Dark spells.
Persona Benefits
- Innately knows Mamudo, the base group Dark spell.
- Learns Mudoon at level 42, which is the high single Dark spell.
- Learns Megido at level 40, a powerful Almighty group spell.
- Also innately knows Masukunda, which will debuff the Agility of the entire enemy team.
Mot
It really doesn’t take long to get to your next Dark persona, which is Mot, and whilst it’s a shame to say goodbye to a trusted ally in Samael so soon, it’s entirely worth the upgrade. You might not think that Dark skills can truly improve, after all it’s just a percentage chance that increases somewhat with every upgrade, but like the Light version of spells, there is a breakpoint that is reached thanks to a certain passive boost.
Thus we have Mot, who usurps our prior choice by upgrading the group Dark spell to Mamudoon, retaining the single target Mudoon spell and by increasing the instant death chance of both by 50% with Mudo Boost. This turns Mudoon into a 60% chance of instant death, and Mamudoon into a 52.5% chance. Outside of these skills it has some ailments, which are best ignored, and it’ll patch up its own Light weakness by learning Resist Light, which is a nice bonus. A great persona choice then, but deep down we all know that it’s just a stop gap really. The true Dark monster is just around the corner…
Persona Benefits
- Innately knows Mudoon, the high single target Dark skill.
- Learns Mamudoon at level 46, the high group target Dark skill.
- Learns Mudo Boost at level 49, which increases the chance for Dark skills to instantly kill by 50%. This increases Mudoon from 40% to 60%, and Mamudoon from 35% to 52.5%.
- Learns Resist Light at level 51, which patches up its only weakness.
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Alice
Alright, some of you may have seen this coming, but our final choice for Dark persona is Alice. Were you to have played any subsequent game in the persona series, or indeed those in the overarching SMT mainline lot, you’ll likely either know about or have used Alice before, and here in P3P she’s as powerful as ever. Unfortunately her skill list isn’t exactly complete, but she does feature a powerful unique skill, the passive that we require, and a few additional benefits besides.
The main event there is her group instant kill Dark attack, named Die For Me! This has a 45% chance to kill every single opponent in the battle. As ever, this is boosted by her learning of Mudo Boost at level 62, which will raise it up to a huge 67.5%! Much like the Light persona Daisoujou with Samsara, this makes Alice the pinnacle of Dark persona on statistics alone. Unfortunately Alice is missing the heavy single target Dark spell Mudoon, but a quick skill card from our old friend Samael will soon resolve this. Be sure to keep your hands on Spirit Drain however, because grabbing 20 SP here and there is actually pretty useful on long Tartarus climbs.
Persona Benefits
- At level 59 Alice learns Die For Me! This is the strongest group Dark attack in the entire game. This features a 45% chance to instantly kill all opponents, which is the highest for any Dark attack in the game.
- Further to the above, Alice will learn Mudo Boost at level 62, which increases the chance for Dark attacks to land by 50%. This boosts the above attack up to 67.5%, which joins the Light spell Samsara as the two highest instant death chances in the game.
- Sadly, Alice will need a skill card to learn Mudoon, if you don’t get it through fusion. You can grab this by levelling up our prior choice, Samael. This spell will be boosted to 60% for a single target by Mudo Boost, noted above.
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