[ Guide ] SMT / Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne HD Remastered Demon Tier List

While the English release of SMT / Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne HD Remastered is still a while away, you’ll be thanking us for our foresight in making this handy dandy tier list to avoid maybe one less endless ENEMY TURN scenario. Jokes aside, you can, of course, finish the game with your favourite demons by manipulating game mechanics like the turn press, innate resistances and inheritable skills that can make the same demon vastly different from playthrough to playthrough.

BASICS

This SMT 3 tier list is based on a given demon’s:

• Number of resistances
• Difficulty on inheriting skills
• Initial level
• Fusion difficulty

Physical damage wins out magical damage, as physical damage can continuously be raised as you level up even when your STR is capped (40). Magic damage will be capped according to your MAG stat (also 40). Thus inheritable physical skills have more weight, namely Thrust, Weapons, Claws, Fangs. This also means a demon’s ability to become a magic dealer will not be considered, but as long as they have skill slots free, you can throw in a magic-based skill as needed as all magical skills can be inherited by any demon.

You may see some demons with low initial levels still be ranked highly. This is because all demons can be capped out fully with mitama and levelled beyond 99. The game’s max level is 250, but visually you will only see this as lv. 99. This just means that lower initial level demons can still outclass others. Without further ado, the SMT 3 Tier List.

TIER S DEMONS

These demons have generally many resistances, immunity to status effects and nullifying instant deaths. Exceptions will be noted, namely:

• Surtr
  • Packs a physical attack dealing fire-based damage, thus can be boosted by relevant fire-boosts
  • To make him more durable you’d want a slot to nullify ice damage e.g. Void Ice / Drain Ice / Repel Ice
  • This ends up making Surtr hard to customize, but the sheer firepower he packs makes it worth while
• Beelzebub
  • Only 2 innate skills means he can be fit into any role
  • Cons: mutating Hamaon, Mudoon or Diarama will be needed if you want him to learn Iron Claw, the highest DPS Claw ability
• Harlot and Beelzebub deal the highest single target damage through Iron Claw and Hell Fang
  • Sacrifices the least HP out of the Tier S demons
• Metatron
  • Least customizable demon, but many useful support spells e.g. Tarukaja, Debilitate
  • Also possesses arguably the best in-game passive, Victory Cry

TIER A DEMONS

All demons featured in this tier do not have weaknesses, but fall short in several places in having lesser resistances and non-mutatable innate skills for less flexibility. Noteworthy demons in this tier are:

• Aciel
  • Victory Cry, Hellfang, Hades Blast being the best combination of innate skills
  • Highly customizable and easiest demon to fuse
• Michael: With skills no longer requiring RNG, it’s much easier to assemble the skills for this unit
• Metador and Hellbiker have somewhat useful innate skills and pack a good number of resistances
  • Also has access to Physical skills like Thrust
• Futomimi
  • Has good resistances but 4 innate skills make him less flexible to use
• Ongyo-Ki
  • Will need a skill slot for void expel. Otherwise has overall good resistances
  • With the removal of RNG for fusing skills, this demon becomes far more viable

TIER B DEMONS

Most of the demons in this tier do not have weaknesses, and even have pretty good resistances. However, their inheritable skills aren’t up to par and it takes a lot of effort to make them viable. Some specific examples are:

• Valkyrie and Loki
  • No weaknesses and quite a few mutatable skills, making them super flexible
  • However, mutating their skills as well as levelling them up will require a fair amount of investment
    • Example skill set 1: (DPS + debuffer + recovery support + buff) – Focus, Pierce, Hades Blast, Delibitate, Prayer, Samrecarm, Tarukaja, Victory Cry
    • Example skill set 2: (DPS + buff + canceler + recovery support) – Focus Pierce, Hades Blast, Tarukaja, Rakukaja, Dekaja, Dekunda, Prayer, Victory Cry
• Titania, Lachesis, Atropos, Daisoujou, Black Rider all have good resistances, hampered by their inability to learn Physical skills and are forced into healing / support / debuff roles
  • They can be made into Magic DPS units, but as we’ve established, Magic Damage gets hard-capped late game and thus not as efficient
• Pale Rider and Red Rider can learn Physical skills, but their innate skills are bad
• Lilith has good resistances but only has Hellfang and cannot inherit Hades Blast
• Cu Chulainn has no weaknesses, but resistances are subpar
  • Seiten Taisei ranks higher due to having Null Physical

CLOSING WORDS

To reiterate, yes, you can play through the game however you like. Our SMT 3 tier list is merely our recommendations to get through the game as painlessly where possible.

Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne HD Remaster will be available in the west in Spring 2021 with Dante available as an add-on paid DLC.