Quite possibly the most likeable SMT protagonist ever, Ringo is the commander of your party in more ways than one. Besides providing the impetus behind the pursuit of the covenants throughout, she’ll also provide the team with fantastic damage and support options in her kit, and eventually access powerful, tide-turning Commander skills. She’s funny, powerful and even sometimes relatable, but she’ll still need a continuous supply of powerful demons to ensure that she succeeds in battle, and that’s what today’s article is all about: The following five demon choices are those that, whilst not absolutely essential, will allow you to fully take advantage of your leading lady’s power throughout the game.
Take-Minakata
Interestingly, Ringo’s first demon recommendation becomes available once the first floor of Arrow’s Soul Matrix is completed, though to be fair it’s not like she has her own now is it? Anyway, Take-Minakata is quite literally the perfect early demon for Ringo, because it hit upon everything she needs at this point in the game; strong damage, debuff support and a bit of utility.
The damage is provided by the base level group Elec skill Mazio, along with the medium single target version Zionga, which will allow Ringo to abuse the numerous elec-weak enemies that inhabit the first quarter of the game. Alongside this is the fantastic Defense Kuzushi skill, which is a physical attack that deals damage and reduces the target’s defence, ensuring it’ll take more damage from the rest of your team. Finally, whilst the Counter and Resist Phys passives aren’t exactly essential, the latter at least will ensure that Ringo can hold up against a damage type that’s frequently encountered.
Ringo Advantages
- Access to Elec skills Mazio and Zionga, the latter of which is the ‘medium’ version of a single target Elec skill, which will deal great damage at this point in the game.
- Take-Minakata innately knows the Defense Kuzushi skill, which is a physical attack that deals damage whilst reducing the target’s defence.
- Passives Counter and Resist Phys are a nice bonus, with the latter being handy in reducing incoming damage to Ringo.
- Access to Zionga at this early point is the main benefit here, so if you adjust your skills quite heavily – like we have in our image above – ensure that you retain access to this skill.
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Mothman
As you progress into the mid game of Soul Hackers 2, MP conservation may become a bit of an issue. This does depend on your difficulty level, and indeed your willingness to return to base and heal multiple times per dungeon, however it’d surely be nice to have some form of solution to this that doesn’t eat away at your time or resources? If this sounds familiar, try grabbing yourself the oft-memed Mothman demon.
Said MP problem is dealt with in two ways. Firstly, Spirit Drain is a skill that can be used to steal MP from an opponent, which is best used in easy encounters to restock your coffers, thus saving it for more difficult battles. Secondly, and more importantly, Mothman learns the Sabbath Drain skill at level 35. If activated, this will cause your Sabbath to deal more damage and restore some MP to the team. This is a skill that you should endeavour to keep in your stack at all times throughout the game – don’t worry though, you don’t need to keep Mothman around forever. Oh, and there is the small matter of the Shock spell, which is a very powerful Elec skill that’s ideal for a standard Ringo build.
Ringo Advantages
- Mothman learns Shock at level 34, which is a powerful multi-hit Elec skill.
- Spirit Drain is innately known. This is a skill that drains MP from the target, restoring it to yourself. Very useful in long dungeon jaunts.
- Sabbath Drain is learned at level 35, and along with the Striker variant this is the best passive Sabbath skill in the game. Whilst this is in your stack and takes part in a Sabbath, this has a chance to activate and deal extra damage along with restoring MP to your team.
Yoshitsune
Soul Hackers 2 continues the trend of throwing Yoshitsune at the player earlier than usual, at least for those used to recent Persona games, and whilst we’re happy to report that whilst he is powerful here, it doesn’t quite approach the game breaking status you might be used to. What you do get is a very strong physical demon with a fantastic passive, and one of the best Sabbath skills in the entire game.
We’ll start with the basics however: Yoshitsune has access to Bamboo Slice and Zionga, which are heavy damage Physical and Elec skills respectively, and after level 41 he can use Charge to power up the former. Level 40 and 42 are where things get truly interesting, because Yoshitsune will learn Sabbath Striker, which has a high chance to make your Sabbath deal additional damage whilst he is present, and the Qigong passive, which restores MP with every action that you take. If combined with the Sabbath Drain passive we noted from Mothman above, MP will almost become a non issue for Ringo, but even considered alone these passive effects are reason enough to keep Yoshitsune around for a long time.
Ringo Advantages
- Yoshitsune has access to Bamboo Slice and Zionga, which are heavy physical and Elec skills respectively.
- Level 40 unlocks Sabbath Striker, which has a high chance to activate during a Sabbath, and it’ll deal a large amount of extra damage to your opponents.
- Qigong is unlocked at level 42, which is a fantastic passive that restores some MP whenever your character takes any action. Bonus points for having Sabbath Drain active at the same time, turning Ringo into an MP conservationist.
Doppelganger
No real surprises here, after all Doppelganger is literally designed to mimic Ringo, and it’s a job that the demon accomplishes very well. So well in fact, that you really ought to fuse one and attach it to Ringo as soon as you can. Standard Ringo builds will benefit well here, because strong Elec and Almighty skills are available in Mazionga and Megidola, but the real benefit is another source of Sabbath Drain, should you need it.
You could opt for our method, which is to simply treat Doppelganger as a great all round option, and load it up with the best skills you can muster whilst retaining those you want to keep. Both physical and magical offensive stats are very high, so you’ll find that the damage is great no matter how you build it. It’s an ideal demon for Ringo during the transition into the late game proper.
Ringo Advantages
- Innate access to the heavy group Elec skill Mazionga.
- Innate access to the medium Almighty damage skill Megidola.
- Learns Makarakarn at level 50, which blocks the next non-almighty magic attack for the entire team.
- Level 52 unlocks Sabbath Drain, which has a chance to make your Sabbath deal some extra damage and drain MP from the targets, restoring it to your team.
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Anzu
Straight out of the box, we really couldn’t ask for a better late game demon for Ringo than Anzu. Having powerful Elec attacks is a given of course, and they’re surely available here, however the late game is filled with difficult encounters and long drawn out boss battles, so the fact that Anzu comes equipped with the fantastic Fog Breath is a real benefit. Being able to debuff both the defence and agility of every enemy in one skill is very valuable, and whilst you will soon gain access to Debilitate, this is just as good from a defensive perspective. As an added bonus, Anzu will eventually patch up its one and only weakness by learning Dodge Gunfire EX at level 64, which should mean that nothing can knock out your most vital party member in the latter portions of the game!
Ringo Advantages
- Access to both heavy Elec skills, Ziodyne and Maziodyne.
- Anzu innately knows Fog Breath, which is a skill that applies both an attack and agility debuff on every enemy, which is super useful in the final dungeon.
- At level 64 Anzu will learn Dodge Gunfire EX, which patches up its only weakness, meaning nothing should knock Ringo down at all.
- Really, this is a great ‘starter’ demon for the absolute end game of Soul Hackers 2 – give it some extra weakness exploiting skills and it’ll serve you well through the last dungeon and into the post game.
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