History GameBreaker / ShinMegamiTensei

* Kannuki-Throw is already a very unbalanced skill —it hits from 1 to 15 times for Physical damage, and it's the Signature Skill of Uriel, a demon who has very high HP, extremely high natural Str and Dx, and a good propensity for Critical hits. But if you take some time to build him up, you can give him Phys and High Phys Pleroma (multiply natural Phys damage by 1.20 and 1.50), Charge + Dark Energy (increase damage of the next Physical attack by 150 and then by 200% respectively, and they stack), Pierce Physical, and your pick of Beastly or Draconic Reaction (increases accuracy+evasion, therefore, number of hits), Speed or Haste Lesson (increase agility, ergo, accuracy), and Bloody Glee (increase Crit chance) and then drop an Archangel's Law on him for the Smirk multiplier (and, for overkill, a triple-stacked Tarukaja --and if you have turns to spare, a triple-stacked Rakunda on the target) and there is ''absolutely nothing'' in the game that can survive a 15-hit Kannuki-Throw doing over 2000 HP of damage per hit. Pair him up with a demon that knows Guardian's Eye, and your only concern for the rest of the game is activating the combo before a Fiend or Sanat Kumara can knock out Uriel.

* Victory Cry + Jihad (or any powerful Almighty-type spell) on a demon - you get to annihilate enemy formations with powerful almighty damage, and receive full healing at the end of the battle to recoup the losses.

* There are several guns that allow you to cause the Stone element. This counts as instant death. Almost everything except bosses are vulnerable this attack. Your Main Character gains 4x the EXP he would normally get if you have no demons out. The Manshonyaga is the easiest gun you can obtain that contains the Rock Bullet skill, and will allow you to gain levels every 2-3 fights for a while.
** The 4x EXP bonus can also be gotten by softening up an opponent with your demons then giving them the return order and finishing the battle on your own. This makes it trivial to break the game in a [[LevelGrinding different way]].
* While Jihad is commonly considered the ultimate skill, it isn't necessarily the most damaging. That falls to the ultra-rare skill Desperate Hit (only naturally on Demonee-ho, and can only be passed on via demon source), which does a random number of almighty hits. If it does 3 or more to a single enemy, that enemy takes more damage than it would from Jihad. VERY useful against bosses for just 40 MP (half the cost of Jihad).
* The way Strange Journey's reflection equation works (damage is calculated entirely based on how much it would have done to the target of the attack, not how much it would do to whoever it's reflected back onto) a smart enough player could have a team of low level demons reflecting attacks back for THOUSANDS of damage, only having to heal their Main Character occasionally and watch out for Almighty moves.
* Grand Tack (Grand Piercer in ''Redux'') is an abnormally strong Gun skill, hitting as hard as a ''Zan-ei on a New Moon'', but without any conditions tied to it and costing a humble 10 MP. It's accessible as early as level 26, off Pabilsag's D-Source. At level 55, you get Kresnik's D-Source, which contains Riot Gun, that's almost ''twice as strong''.
* The Double Down Sub-App guarantees a skill mutation whenever your demons level up. You can get very impressive results like Mamudoon becoming Debilitate or Megidolaon becoming Big Bang, gaining access to powerful skills before you can fuse demons that innately have them.

* Drain. It does Almighty damage (which means that 99.9% of enemies can't resist, null, deflect, or absorb it), is surprisingly damaging, and robs the enemy of their HP and MP while replenishing yours.

* Dante, though he can only be recruited near the end of Labyrinth of Amala. He may not learn Pierce if you're not playing the HD Remaster, but he does learn Son's Oath, which increase his offensive output by 50%. He possesses a freakishly high crit rate in 'Rebellion' and his 'Showtime' is basically a cheap Megidolaon with more flash. Sure, you don't get him till near the very end of the game, but then you can watch him wipe out any DemonicSpiders with style and ease.

* Surt. It's the only demon in the game with a Fire-type normal attack, making it the only normal attack capable of being boosted by Fire Boost. Because it's physical, however, it can also be enhanced by Pierce (makes attacks ignore all resistances except Repel), Focus (boosts the next physical attack's damage by 250%), and either Bright Might (Guarantees a critical hit when attacking normally on a Full Kagutsuchi) or Dark Might (Guarantees a critical hit when attacking normally on a New Kagutsuchi). Giving Surt these skills, as well as any skill that covers its Ice weakness, makes Surt capable of dishing out tons of damage from its normal attacks.

* Hell Gaze has very high chance of killing anybody not immune to Death, and it's relatively common among recruitable demons. God's Bow from the Fiend White Rider is even better; either the enemy is immune to Expel, or they die; simple as that.
* Beelzebub (Fly form) has Death Flies, a skill which ''will'' kill all enemies unless they are immune to Death like God's Bow above. The kicker is, even if they are immune to the instant kill they still take an amount of damage equivalent to Megidolaon. The catch is, he can only be fused after defeating him in [[BonusLevelOfHell Labyrinth of Amala]].
* Dante, though he can only be recruited near the end of Labyrinth of Amala. He may not learn Pierce, but he does learn Son's Oath, which increase his offensive output by 50%. He possesses a freakishly high crit rate in 'Rebellion' and his 'Showtime' is basically a cheap Megidolaon with more flash. Sure, you don't get him till near the very end of the game, but then you can watch him wipe out any DemonicSpiders with style and ease.
* The late-game Masakados magatama gives you immunity to everything but almighty attacks and a whopping +10 to all stats except Luck. This game's stat cap is 40, by the way. As you gain levels with this magatama, you also pick up passives for repelling each element, so you can become immune to everything without needing it. That said, this magatama is only available after you beat [[BonusBoss the Four Devas]], which is not an easy task.

* Surt. It's the only demon in the game with a Fire-type normal attack, making it the only normal attack capable of being boosted by Fire Boost. Because it's physical, however, it can also be enhanced by Pierce (makes attacks ignore all resistances except Repel), Focus (boosts the next physical attack's damage by 250%), and Bright Might (Guarantees a critical hit when attacking normally on a Full Moon). Giving Surt these skills, as well as any skill that covers its Ice weakness, makes Surt capable of dishing out tons of damage from its normal attacks.

* Surt. It's the only demon in the game with a Fire-type normal attack, making it the only normal attack capable of being boosted by Fire Boost. Because it's physical, however, it can also be enhanced by Pierce (makes attacks ignore all resistances except Repel), Focus (boosts the next physical attack's damage by 250%), and Bright Might (Guarantees a critical hit when attacking normally on a Full Moon). Giving Surt these skills, as well as any skill that covers its Ice weakness, makes Surt capable of dishing out tons of damage from it's normal attacks.

* Cocytus in the first game. It's a random-hit ice spell that has an ''absurdly high'' rate of inflicting the Freeze status, which ''makes the target lose all their resistances and turns any physical attack on them into a CriticalHit''. Also, if it hits the same target twice, it deals more damage than Bufudyne, the top tier ice spell. Slap Ice Boost and/or Ice Amp, and the game will be a walk in the park for the most part. It's especially useful against the BossInMookClothing Arahabaki enemy, which repels everything but Ice (which it's weak to) and Expel. It was nerfed in the second game, though.

* Cocytus in the first game. It's a random-hit ice spell that has an ''absurdly high'' rate of inflicting the Freeze status, which ''makes the target lose all their resistances and turns any physical attack on them into a CriticalHit''. Also, if it hits a same target twice, it deals more damage than Bufudyne, the top tier ice spell. Slap Ice Boost and/or Ice Amp, and the game will be a walk in the park for the most part. It's especially useful against the BossInMookClothing Arahabaki enemy, which repels everything but Ice (which it's weak to) and Expel. It was nerfed in the second game, though.
* The Death Flies skill from Nocturne makes a comeback in this game: 100% kill if targets don't null Death, Megidolaon worth of damage if they do.

* Luster Candy and Debilitate are by far the most sought-after buffs and debuffs, respectively, in any game that they appear in. The former boosts your entire party's attack, defense, and hit/evasion, while the latter reduces them for the entire enemy party. While the MP/SP cost is often relatively high, it's still more efficient than casting individual stat buff/debuff spells. That said, they do get nerfed in ''Persona 4'' where they become single-target skills on top of the ''Persona'' games reducing buff and debuff duration to 3 turns, and in ''Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse'' where their MP costs are greatly increased to encourage use of the Affinity system.

* The Null Attack skill nulls ''everything'' except Almighty attacks. This makes you effectively invincible for 90% of the game as only the last two dungeons have random encounters that make use of almighty attacks and none of the storyline bosses (except for the last boss) use almighty as their main form of attack. It won't help you against the bonus bosses though since they just love their powerful unique almighty attacks and the [[spoiler:Demi-Fiend]] will rip you to shreds on his first turn if you dare to have immunities equipped.

* Null Sleep, especially in the first game (where it's on the same Mantra as Cocytus above). That title is a misnomer; it doesn't make the user immune to sleep, it makes them ''dodge all attacks if they're asleep'', causing the enemy to waste precious turns. It's so good that it's even part of a strategy that makes the [[spoiler:Demi-Fiend]] much, MUCH easier, because it enables the user to dodge even the strongest Almighty attacks!

* [[UselessUsefulSpell Petra Eyes]] is ''[[SubvertedTrope extremely useful]]'', at least [[NewGamePlus on the first run]], since petrified characters can be killed in one hit with luck no matter the HP or level. Being an [[NintendoHard Atlus game]] filled with GoddamnedBats where a huge part of them aren't resistant.
* Pierce bypasses resistance to, nullification of, and draining of physical attacks, unless the demon's name starts with [[NighInvulnerability "Bel"]] and ends with [[GoddamnedBoss "dr"]]. Pair this up with Deathbound and you can demolish bosses that would otherwise make a physical assault hopeless, such as Belzeboul and [[spoiler:Naoya]]. The only limiting factor is that you can only have one team leader using Pierce, until ''Overclocked'' introduces the [=Pierce+=] Auto Skill that makes fielding a second physical user viable.
* Not every race was created equal, and some racial skills are significantly stronger:

* To start, the Masakados magatama gives you immunity to everything but almighty attacks and a whopping +10 to all stats except Luck. This game's stat cap is 40, by the way. As you gain levels with this magatama, you also pick up passives for repelling each element, so you can become immune to everything without needing it. That said, this magatama is only available after you beat [[BonusBoss the Four Devas]], which is not an easy task.

* God's Bow and Hell Gaze are basically the same attack, just with different elements (Bow is Expel, Gaze is Death). Either they block that element, or they die. Simple as that, although Hell Gaze does have a chance to miss entirely.
* Beelzebub (Fly form) has Death Flies, a skill that has 100% of killing all enemies unless they are immune to Death. If they are immune to Death, they take an amount of damage equivalent to Megidolaon.

* Recarmdra, with proper exploiting and fusion, you can create an infinite cycle of healing or one powerful mage. When the HP/MP of your party is low, have that demon use Recarmdra, Blammo; your party gets back all their HP and MP, next have another demon use Samrecarm to resurrect it, and summon it again. Mana Drain also is useful, give it to a powerful magic user and let them do all the damage dealing; it is even better if they know Megido class magic.
* Freikugel: Almighty damage, very high critical chance, and abnormally high damage output. It's simply the strongest damage skill in the game. In addition, on the True Demon Ending, due to it being an odd mix of Physical and Almighty, you can combine it with Pierce to break one of the last bosses in the game, who is a BarrierChangeBoss resistant to Almighty.
* Dante may not learn Pierce, but he does learn Son's Oath, which increase his offensive output by 50%. He possesses a freakishly high crit rate in 'Rebellion' and his 'Showtime' is basically a cheap Megidolaon with more flash. Sure, you don't get him till near the very end of the game, but then you can watch him wipe out any DemonicSpiders with style and ease.
* Focus: Raises the damage of the next physical attack by around +150%, and can be learned as early as lv23. It's not hard at all to hit 4 digits as early as against [[ThatOneBoss Matador]] (who only has 1000 HP), or 5 digits later in the game due to this.

** Flight passively increases your movement range and ignore any terrain restrictions, letting you dart across the battlefield without needing to circumvent obstacles so you can chase down rogue enemy teams or even ignore certain level gimmicks. Phantasma comes close, exchanging the movement range bonus for reduced delay between turns.

** Drain Hit + Pierce results in physical attacks that bypass most forms of resistance, on top of healing their user which compensates for their HP cost. This makes it possible to spam Deathbound without losing out on damage outpu and without worry of putting its user in danger of dying.

** Evil Flow + Chaos Breath for functionally 10 attack range in exchange for barely getting turns.

** Blood Treaty, the upgraded Tyrant racial skill, adds an option to triple the amount of recovery. This includes the Tyrant's passive MP regeneration to the team, letting you throw out Megidolaons endlessly without needing any cost reduction. This option also affects Drain, so it hits extremely hard.
* Individual Demon wise there's Da Peng and [[spoiler:Lucifer]]. Da Peng has perfectly placed stats and innate skills for Multi Strike, and best of all, it's not a unique demon and comes with one of the best Racial skill in the game. Additionally, its only weakness, Fire, is painfully easy to fuse over by ranking up Feng Huang, who naturally learns Drain Fire; while [[spoiler:Lucifer]] has all around good stats, and hidden resistance modifier to everything even Almighty and Reflect Curse, which stack with its innate resistance to everything. Their downside are they are realistically only unlockable in NewGamePlus thanks to their high level, that and you need to [[spoiler:take Al Saiduq's route to unlock Lucifer]].

** A lethal one is a variation on Keita's strategy: combine Rage Soul with Twin Strike, Attack All and Ultimate Hit. See how many enemy teams survive that.

* The ChargedAttack skills: Focus / Charge / Power Charge for physical attacks and Concentrate / Mind Charge for magic attacks (the names vary by game). They force you to wait until the next turn to do damage, but causes that next attack to do at least double damage. In most cases the damage multiplier is 250%, allowing you to do more damage than if you just attack every turn, even more if you can get some multiplicative damage buffs on top of that. Even in games where these skills only multiply damage by two, they're still useful for conserving MP; using 75 SP to cast a Mind Charged Megidolaon is still 60% more efficient than using 120 SP to cast it twice in a row. ''Shin Megami Tensei IV'' and ''Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse'' buff these skills by only having their effects expire when used rather than after the next turn, so even if the user gets incapacitated or decides to do something besides attack, they won't lose the charge until they decide to make use of it.

** Speaking of stackable stat buffs, there is a passive GameBreaker that can, if one is not averse to LevelGrinding and item farming, turn your main character into a stat buffed tank. This is achieved by farming gemstones from demons until you have nine of each type, whereupon stats buffs are applied to your permanent stats as long as you don't reduce the gemstone count, and this condition is stupidly easy to honor, since the only two ways to lose gemstones is to spend them as currency at a certain store (which can make the game easier for some gamers but never need be visited) or use them as trade items in demon negotiation, which, again, need not be done because all demons can be bribed with other materials. This doesn't mean that the stat buffs make passing the skill check for the bonus dungeon easier (the check goes by your natural skill level, ignoring buffs), but this can be used to make certain story event skill checks effortless.

* Remember Jihad from Strange Journey? It's back in this game as Antichthon.

* ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'' also (ahem) inherits the "pick and choose" skill system of ''Devil Survivor'' mentioned at the top of the page, but instead of selecting only a few, it gives you full customization of the result. This means you can toss aside undesirable innate skills from the demon's base skill set and fill it up with whatever you want from its fusion components. ''Anything'' you want can become a quad-dyne user with buffs and heals, for instance, and your only limiting factor would be the demon's HP/MP pool and stat spread.[[note]]Not that it matters much when a lot of the demons you fuse here have perfectly even stats across the board.[[/note]] This customizability got nerfed in ''Apocalypse'' as it introduces demon affinities that influence skill efficiency, forcing you to play to the demons' preferences instead of just slapping the same skills on everyone.

** Tyranny basically gives you regenerating MP based on how much damage you dealt. When you're throwing out Megidolaons with their costs halved from Magic Yang, you will be able to cover its hefty cost. If you have Awakening, that temporarily raises your magic damage, the MP regen will also cover that too!

* If you have Battle Aura, attacks that do 50 or less damage will not harm your team at all, and it comes with a very low cost of 10 MP per skirmish. If you have Anti-Most and something and a Resist/Drain/Null/Repel Phys trait, you and your team cannot be touched by anything short of Almighty moves. This combo is even better in the sequel if you have Anti-Almighty, making you virtually untouchable. If you have a Tyrant (which auto-restores MP for you), you also never run out of MP to keep this going.

* Due to it having very similar mechanics, most of what applies in ''Devil Survivor'' above will also apply in this game.

** Evil Flow + Chaos Breath for functionally 11 attack range in exchange for barely getting turns.
** Winged Flight + Chaos Breath to counter the movement debuff.

* Individual Demon wise there's Da Peng and [[spoiler:Lucifer]]. Da Peng has perfectly placed stats and innate skills for Multi Strike, and best of all, it's not a unique demon and comes with one of the best Racial skill in the game. Additionally, its only weakness, Fire, is painfully easy to fuse over by ranking up Heng Huang, who naturally learns Drain Fire; while [[spoiler:Lucifer]] has all around good stats, and hidden resistance modifier to everything even Almighty and Reflect Curse, which stack with its innate resistance to everything. Their downside are they are realistically only unlockable in NewGamePlus thanks to their high level, that and you need to [[spoiler:take Al Saiduq's route to unlock Lucifer]].

* The ChargedAttack skills: Focus / Charge / Power Charge and Concentrate / Mind Charge (the names vary by game). They force you to wait until the next turn to do damage, but causes that next attack to do at least double damage. In most cases the damage multiplier is 250%, allowing you to do more damage than if you just attack every turn, even more if you can get some multiplicative damage buffs on top of that. Even in games where these skills only multiply damage by two, they're still useful for conserving MP; using 75 SP to cast a Mind Charged Megidolaon is still 60% more efficient than using 120 SP to cast it twice in a row. ''Shin Megami Tensei IV'' and ''Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse'' buff these skills by only having their effects expire when used rather than after the next turn, so even if the user gets incapacitated or decides to do something besides attack, they won't lose the charge until they decide to make use of it.

* The ChargedAttack skills: Focus / Charge / Power Charge and Concentrate / Mind Charge (the names vary based on game). They force you to wait until the next turn to do damage, but causes that next attack to do at least double damage. In most cases the damage multiplier is 250%, allowing you to do more damage than if you just attack every turn, even more if you can get some multiplicative damage buffs on top of that. Even in games where these skills only multiply damage by two, they're still useful for conserving MP; using 75 SP to cast a Mind Charged Megidolaon is still 60% more efficient than using 120 SP to cast it twice in a row. ''Shin Megami Tensei IV'' and ''Shin Megami Tensei IV Apocalypse'' buff these skills by only having their effects expire when used rather than after the next turn, so even if the user gets incapacitated or decides to do something besides attack, they won't lose the charge until they decide to make use of it.

* The ChargedAttack skills: Focus / Charge and Concentrate / Mind Charge (the names vary based on game). They force you to wait until the next turn to do damage, but causes that next attack to do at least double damage. In most cases the damage multiplier is 250%, allowing you to do more damage than if you just attack every turn, even more if you can get some multiplicative damage buffs on top of that. Even in games where these skills only multiply damage by two, they're still useful for conserving MP; using 75 SP to cast a Mind Charged Megidolaon is still 60% more efficient than using 120 SP to cast it twice in a row.

* The ChargedAttack skills: Focus / Charge and Concentrate / Mind Charge. They force you to wait until the next turn to do damage, but causes that next attack to do at least double damage. In most cases the damage multiplier is 250%, allowing you to do more damage than if you just attack every turn, even more if you can get some multiplicative damage buffs on top of that. Even in games where these skills only multiply damage by two, they're still useful for conserving MP; using 75 SP to cast a Mind Charged Megidolaon is still 60% more efficient than using 120 SP to cast it twice in a row.

* The ChargedAttack skills: Focus / Charge and Concentrate / Mind Charge. They force you to wait until the next turn to do damage, but causes that next attack to do at least double damage. In most cases the damage multiplier is 250%, allowing you to do more damage than if you just attack every turn, even more if you can get some multiplicative damage buffs on top of that. Even in games where these skills only multiply damage by two, they're still useful for conserving MP; using 75 SP to cast a Mind Charged Megidolaon is still 60% better than using 120 SP to cast it twice in a row.

* The ChargedAttack skills: Focus / Charge and Concentrate / Mind Charge. They force you to wait until the next turn to do damage, but causes that next attack to do at least double damage. In most cases the damage multiplier is 250%, allowing you to do more damage than if you just attack every turn, even more if you can get some multiplicative damage buffs on topo of that. Even in games where these skills only multiply damage by two, they're still useful for conserving MP; using 75 SP to cast a Mind Charged Megidolaon is still 60% better than using 120 SP to cast it twice in a row.

* Bright Might and Dark Might give the character guaranteed critical hits during a Full or New Kagutsuchi respectively. Spread it around your team a little and do a little Phase stalling before engaging a boss, and you can easily get a lot of free turns with it. Add buffs and debuffs to this and you get to ''auto-attack a boss to death''!

* Matador is one of the earlier {{Bonus Boss}}es you can find in Twisted Tokyo. Defeating him unlocks him for fusion, and he carries his SignatureMove, Andalucia. This hits a ''tremendous'' number of times (4 to 12) and he innately learns Phys Pierce to make the attack completely unblockable. Combine this with Pleromas, Charge, and maybe even Bloody Glee, and you can lay waste to bosses with a good chance of any one of these hits becoming a critical.

* Also in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiI'', one of the best swords in the game, the Hinokagutsuchi, can be acquired about halfway through if you know the proper fusions. One attack is usually enough to kill anything short of the final boss and his lackeys.

* In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIf'', having save data from other Atlus games when you reach the Appraisal Shop in the Domain of Sloth will get you 18 extra stat points (effectively letting you reach level 117 in a game with a 99 max), increases all of your demons' HP permanently by 25%, gets all of the buff spells on your partner, Sabbatma, and ten somas. That's ten party-wide full-HP and MP healing items, a spell that lets your partner summon demons, and the three most useful spells in the game!

* ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIIINocturne'' has its fair share of Breakers too, in many forms. Masakados, for example, nullifies just about every attack on you and increases strength, vitality, magic and agility by 10 (the max on stats in this game is 40).
** Then there's Fog Breath, which drops the accuracy and evasion of every enemy by two stages and can't be blocked. You can get this skill from a common Magatama as early as Level 21, and although the MP cost is steep at that level, Fog Breath retains its value right up until the endgame.
** God's Bow and Hell Gaze are basically the same attack, just with different elements (Bow is Expel, Gaze is Death). Either they block that element, or they die. Simple as that, although Hell Gaze does have a chance to miss entirely.
** Beelzebub (Fly form) has Death Flies, a skill that has 100% of killing all enemies unless they are immune to Death. If they are immune to Death, they take an amount of damage equivalent to Megidolaon.
** Hoo boy, Black Frost. Where to start? He's one of few demons that can be recruited outside of fusion, he has ridiculously high stats, comes with a Ma-Dyne spell, and has no weakness. And his resistances? He absorbs ice, reflects fire and darkness, is immune to light, and takes negligible damage from physical attacks. This means the only attacks effective against him are electricity and force.
*** Even though he joins the party outside of fusion, he can still be fused and/or have Mitamas fused to it to make him ''even stronger''.
** Atropos. When you get her she has Element Boosts, which amp up damage of a specific element by 50%. In other words, she is optimal for being a Quad-dyne-spell user.
** Daisoujou. Immune to every status ailment in the book in some way, has a good Magic stat, and can restore its own HP and MP during boss fights with Meditation, and also learns Prayer, which makes him a stellar support caster, especially if you sacrifice demons to level him up and/or give him skills like Dekaja and/or Debilitate.
*** Really, any of the Fiends can be this because they retain their ContractualBossImmunity to OneHitKill spells and StandardStatusEffects when you unlock them for fusion. The Hell Biker, Red Rider, and Mother Harlot really stand out thanks to the above-mentioned combination of Null/Absorb/Repel skills and their natural immunities letting them become immune to everything except Almighty and still have slots for other skills.
** Recarmdra, with proper exploiting and fusion, you can create an infinite cycle of healing or one powerful mage. When the HP/MP of your party is low, have that demon use Recarmdra, Blammo; your party gets back all their HP and MP, next have another demon use Samrecarm to resurrect it, and summon it again. Mana Drain also is useful, give it to a powerful magic user and let them do all the damage dealing; it is even better if they know Megido class magic.
** Freikugel: Almighty damage, very high critical chance, and abnormally high damage output. It's simply the strongest damage skill in the game. In addition, on the True Demon Ending, due to it being an odd mix of Physical and Almighty, you can combine it with Pierce to break one of the last bosses in the game, who is a BarrierChangeBoss resistant to Almighty.
** Dante may not learn Pierce, but he does learn Son's Oath, which increase his offensive output by 50%. He possesses a freakishly high crit rate in 'Rebellion' and his 'Showtime' is basically a cheap Megidolaon with more flash. Sure, you don't get him till near the very end of the game, but then you can watch him wipe out any DemonicSpiders with style and ease.
** Focus: Raises the damage of the next physical attack by around +150%, and can be learned as early as lv23. It's not hard at all to hit 4 digits as early as against [[ThatOneBoss Matador]] (who only has 1000 HP), or 5 digits later in the game due to this.
* ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney'' has Victory Cry + Jihad (or any powerful Almighty-type spell) on a demon. The Eternal Rest spell in conjunction with any sleep spell is also effective, as status ailments work quite often on a surprising amount of enemies, and the combo can lead to a near DiscOneNuke if you get it early enough.
** Shiva as well as [[spoiler:The Demiurge]] appear as the demons with the highest starting level for the Chaos and Law alignments respectively. Both naturally start with the aforementioned Victory Cry + Jihad combo and have respectable resistances (both are immune to expel and curse and have a good spread of other resistances and immunities). Additionally Shiva has Enduring Soul (a full revive after death once per battle) and [[spoiler:The Demiurge]] has Luster Candy (boosts all stats for the party). Shiva gets bonus points here for being considerably easier to summon (he only requires the player to be level 91 and is created in special fusion with his traditional recipe, while [[spoiler:The Demiurge]] is the bonus boss and must be beaten, only in the second playthrough and later, before you can fuse it from 3 specific demons.)
** There are several guns that allow you to cause the Stone element. This counts as instant death. Almost everything except bosses are vulnerable this attack. Your Main Character gains 4x the EXP he would normally get if you have no demons out. The Manshonyaga is the easiest gun you can obtain that contains the Rock Bullet skill, and will allow you to gain levels every 2-3 fights for a while.
*** The 4x EXP bonus can also be gotten by softening up an opponent with your demons then giving them the return order and finishing the battle on your own. This makes it trivial to break the game in a [[LevelGrinding different way]].
** While Jihad is commonly considered the ultimate skill, it isn't necessarily the most damaging. That falls to the ultra-rare skill Desperate Hit (only naturally on Demonee-ho, and can only be passed on via demon source), which does a random number of almighty hits. If it does 3 or more to a single enemy, that enemy takes more damage than it would from Jihad. VERY useful against bosses for just 40 MP (half the cost of Jihad).
** The way Strange Journey's reflection equation works (damage is calculated entirely based on how much it would have done to the target of the attack, not how much it would do to whoever it's reflected back onto) a smart enough player could have a team of low level demons reflecting attacks back for THOUSANDS of damage, only having to heal their Main Character occasionally and watch out for Almighty moves.
** Grand Tack (Grand Piercer in ''Redux'') is an abnormally strong Gun skill, hitting as hard as a ''Zan-ei on a New Moon'', but without any conditions tied to it and costing a humble 10 MP. It's accessible as early as level 26, off Pabilsag's D-Source. At level 55, you get Kresnik's D-Source, which contains Riot Gun, that's almost ''twice as strong''.
** The Double Down Sub-App guarantees a skill mutation whenever your demons level up. You can get very impressive results like Mamudoon becoming Debilitate or Megidolaon becoming Big Bang, gaining access to powerful skills before you can fuse demons that innately have them.
** Several accessories become available in NewGamePlus, but none stand out quite like the Solomon Ring. It grants the protagonist immunity to Expel and Curse on top of reflecting all other magic elements! Slap this on with the Armor Vest (which resists phys and gun, but has an elec weakness that's automatically covered by the ring), and the protagonist is now NighInvulnerable.
** Forneus from ''Redux'' has Death Bite, which deals "light" physical damage but always hits 4 times. Compare this to Megaton Press or Madness Crush, which deal stronger individual hits, but strike randomly between 1 to 4 times -- the former will need roll its maximum of 4 hits to match Death Bite, and the latter will only surpass it at 3 or more hits. As far as consistency is concerned, Death Bite stands among the strongest physical skills in the game. Forneus also comes with Charge and Acid Breath to let him hit even harder. Impart Phys Boost and Phys Amp via D-Sources, and watch him lay waste to anything not resistant!
** ''Redux'' also adds the Lucifer equipment set, all of which are exceptionally powerful but must be obtained by defeating the new Bonus Bosses. To note:
*** The Lucifer Sword, a single-target sword that pierces through any resistances to physical damage. This trivializes any enemy that resists, nulls, absorbs, or reflects physical.
*** The Lucifer Gun, a multi-target gun that has the obscenely-powerful [[CriticalHit Final Seven]] skill.
*** The Lucifer Mail, a vest that gives Curse immunity and resistance to Fire, Ice, Elec, and Wind.
*** The Lucifer Ring, a ring that ''nulls all status ailments'' when equipped, even Rage (which normally cannot be protected against).

** Magic Bullets have the Enchanting Bullet Hole, which has a base 40% chance of hitting charm. Then there's the nekomata soulstone that raises that chance by 50%. And then there are dozens of different ways to get the 10% remaining to have 100% charm. Considering Magic Bullet skills ''completely ignore enemy resistances'' for calculating ailment chances, anything that doesn't null mind/charm ''will'' become charmed when shot by this.

** The MP recovery app is broken in itself. You know it's broken when you can use ''Megidolaon'' every battle and have no shortage of MP by the next battle.
** Remember Jihad from Strange Journey? It's back in this game as Antichthon.
** The Skill Augment app. It makes demons more likely to mutate skills. With a little luck, it's possible to get useful skills early in the game and get even more powerful skills as you proceed.
** Odin's Thunder Reign attack is a Severe-level, all-targeting Thunder skill...that costs only 22 MP. To compare, Maziodyne is one tier lower, also targets everyone on the enemy team, and costs 32 MP. While Odin himself has a pretty bad Magic stat, Thunder Reign can be passed on either via Demon Whisper if you have a high Magic stat, or to a new, magic-oriented demon via fusion. This was, ahem, ''[[{{Pun}} reined]]'' [[{{Nerf}} in]] in ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIVApocalypse'', where it instead costs 70 MP before affinities.

** ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIV'' also (ahem) inherits the "pick and choose" skill system of ''Devil Survivor'' mentioned at the top of the page, but instead of selecting only a few, it allows you to choose up to ''eight'' skills for your demon to have upon birth: the demon's one or two intrinsic skills, plus anything its progenitors have learned (and then, whatever else the demon can gain naturally by leveling). Even if the demon lacks natural resistances, making a demon that Nulls, Drains, or Repels anything but Almighty is absurdly easy. And while this was already possible in earlier games in the franchise, enemies that target your demon won't just lose their turns, they'll also grant your demon a free Smirk status, making it a game-breaker for anything other than Fiends and Almighty-abusing bosses. The only limitation to this inheritance system is with specific "signature" skills which can't be selected during Cathedral of Shadows fusion, but they can still show up during the mid-battle Fusion Lite app.
** Yet another [[GoodBadBugs Streetpass]] [[LoopholeAbuse Exploit]] found. Want to increase a certain demon's stats without level grinding, (or if it's already at level 99) or using up Incenses? Just have at least another 3DS with Streetpass enabled on both of them, attach the demon to your DDS card, and insert the cartridge from one system to the other when you get the data from either of them. If done correctly, the attached demon's stats will increase (along with a possible gift) when you access the Streetpass feature on your gauntlet. Just save afterward (This is '''very''' important in order to keep the increased stat), and go back to the menu where you can then receive more Streetpass data from the other 3DS. [[UpToEleven This even works with demons]] '''only available through DLC, even if only''' ''' ''one'' ''' ''' 3DS has the purchased data required'''. Without said data on the SD card, the DLC demon attached will appear as a question mark and be unplayable (with the possible exception of the Archangels, whose names still appear as "???") but will ''still'' get the stat boost(s). Meaning you can get something like [[spoiler: Masakado's Shadow]] with maxed out stats before or ''after'' it reaches Level 99 in a much easier fashion that doesn't require using up a single Incense or waiting to receive Streetpass data from more players.
** Kannuki-Throw is already a very unbalanced skill —it hits from 1 to 15 times for Physical damage, and it's the Signature Skill of Uriel, a demon who has very high HP, extremely high natural Str and Dx, and a good propensity for Critical hits. But if you take some time to build him up, you can give him Phys and High Phys Pleroma (multiply natural Phys damage by 1.20 and 1.50), Charge + Dark Energy (increase damage of the next Physical attack by 150 and then by 200% respectively, and they stack), Pierce Physical, and your pick of Beastly or Draconic Reaction (increases accuracy+evasion, therefore, number of hits), Speed or Haste Lesson (increase agility, ergo, accuracy), and Bloody Glee (increase Crit chance) and then drop an Archangel's Law on him for the Smirk multiplier (and, for overkill, a triple-stacked Tarukaja --and if you have turns to spare, a triple-stacked Rakunda on the target) and there is ''absolutely nothing'' in the game that can survive a 15-hit Kannuki-Throw doing over 2000 HP of damage per hit. Pair him up with a demon that knows Guardian's Eye, and your only concern for the rest of the game is activating the combo before a Fiend or Sanat Kumara can knock out Uriel.
* ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIVApocalypse'' has Nanashi's [[EleventhHourSuperpower Awakened Power]], obtained near the end of the game. It powers up ''all'' his attacks and lets them bypass ''all forms of resistance''. Since the player can fully control his stat growth and dump a lot of stat points in his main attacking stats, this makes Nanashi an outstanding attacker.
** Steel Bazooka + Mute Shot, not so much for damage, but for stunlocking capabilites. The former, eventually rewarded to Nanashi by the Hunter Association for completing 60% of the Challenge quests, hits for a maximum of six times, and the latter [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin causes the Mute status]], which only a fifty of the enemies, ''bosses included'', can resist against. Watch the difficulty dropping with each successful Mute proc, signalling your target being forced to waste their turns!
*** Pair this gun with the Bind Shot, and you can instead bind entire groups of enemies, leaving them free for you to fundraise.
*** Conversely, there's the Mist Rush skill. Inflicts Daze, which carries the same advantages from Mute above, and hits for 2~4 times per use. Stack both at your heart's content!
** Once defeated [[GuideDangIt and the method discovered]], Krishna can be fused for you to use. His [[SignatureMove Raga skills]] can each inflict three possible ailments at once with 2 applications of an attack or defense debuff, making him useful both against random encounters and bosses, and Combat Tara is his own, cheaper version of Luster Candy. Keep him alive and he becomes a fantastic support party member.
** Matador is one of the earlier {{Bonus Boss}}es you can find in Twisted Tokyo. Defeating him unlocks him for fusion, and he carries his SignatureMove, Andalucia. This hits a ''tremendous'' number of times (4 to 12) and he innately learns Phys Pierce to make the attack completely unblockable. Combine this with Pleromas, Charge, and maybe even Bloody Glee, and you can lay waste to bosses with a good chance of any one of these hits becoming a critical.
** Your allies can border on this too once their final skills are unlocked. Navarre gains access to the immensely helpful Doping and Debilitate skills, which have had their costs dramatically increased as compared to the previous game, thereby saving you ''hundreds'' of MP as you won't need to cast them yourself. Asahi, at her full power, has her healing output dramatically enhanced, allowing Mediarama to heal for upwards of 800 health, keeping your party consistently fresh, and when she doesn't need to heal, she can provide free Smirks as well.
** Once Isabeau stays in your partner list permanently, she becomes less of a JackOfAllStats and more like a straight-up MasterOfAll. Once she reaches level 82, and you and your entire partner list ''will'' on the two neutral routes, she has all four standard -dyne spells and Megidolaon for offense, Mediarama and Diarahan for healing, and Luster Candy for buffing. And her AI is smart enough to prioritize healing, Luster Candy, and attack in that order, meaning she's rarely ever useless. You ''can'' lose her on Massacre by picking another final partner, but let's be real, you'd be hard-pressed to ''not'' pick her. She doesn't get a plot-activated special skill like everyone else does, but she doesn't need one.
** From the Demon Market, one can purchase several custom-built demons, thereby skipping the process of needing to fuse them oneself. An example includes Demiurge with the highest-strength single target inheritable elemental spells, Concentrate, and Antichthon. While his low MP and middling Magic stat puts him at CoolButInefficient despite his great attacking affinities, he becomes valuable fusion fodder for other Magic-oriented demons as well as passing and augmenting these skills to Nanashi via Demon Whisper.

** The skill giving item. Oh gosh, the skill giving item. Similar to the UpdatedRerelease of ''VideoGame/Persona3'' this allows you to give skills to your demon, except your options in this game are limited to some exclusive moves instead of almost every move in the game. The catch? One of these items that is available pretty early gives you a move that hits 8 times randomly that is available to pretty much every demon in the game with fairly strong base power and sometimes extra effects. This basically renders every other move barring healing moves completely obsolete since you can spam this move to win any kind of fight. Combine with the fusion system above and even the BonusBoss won't last more than one round.