This is a walkthrough for the boss, Arioch, found in the 4th Stratum in the Demon King’s Castle in Shin Megami Tensei V. All of his weaknesses, resistances and skills to avoid.

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Arioch is the Demon King and it’s up to you to defeat him

Stats and Resistances¶

Icon	Name	Lv	Weakness	Resistances	Location
	Arioch	55		(REPEL), / (RESIST)	Demon King’s Castle - 4th Stratum

Skills¶

Type	Skill	Effect
	Brave Blade +2	Heavy Physical attack to 1 foe. High chance of Critical.
	Mighty Cleave +2	Heavy Physical attack to 1 foe. Low accuracy, but hits are always Critical.
	Bufudyne +5	Heavy Ice attack to 1 foe.
	Hades Blast +2	Heavy Physical attack to all foes.
	Mabufudyne +5	Heavy Ice attack to all foes.

Recommended Party¶

Icon	Name
	Loki
	Lahmu (Needs Resist Fire)
	Dominion

Arioch only gets a single action per round, but he will always get the first move during this battle, which he uses to summon two Decarabias. These things can be a bit of a pain, as they will buff with Masukukaja and you don’t need Arioch having better accuracy. It’s incredibly useful to have Dekaja because of that, since one of Arioch’s Physical skills has inherent low accuracy and as it always crits, that gives the entire group more opportunities to pile on damage. They can also put Tetrakarn on one another, which if you have a Physical-based party, is bad since that skills reflects Physical attacks.

By far, though, the most dangerous part of the Decarabias is Megidola, an Almighty spell that hits the entire party. As you cannot resist Almighty at all, that means Megidola will deal full damage (unless you use debuffs/buffs, of course). They also know Agidyne, but you shouldn’t have anyone weak to Fire on your team; they do have decent magic, so Agidyne can hurt a bit. The Decarabias are weak to Light, while being immune to Dark. Your goal should be to go after them first, as they don’t have as much health as Arioch, and he won’t be summoning them after they are defeated, unlike some other battles with minions.

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(1 of 3) Arioch will always spawn two Decarabias as soon as the battle begins

Moving on to Arioch, he is mainly Physical and has two Ice skills, with Mabufudyne being reserved for whenever the Magatsuhi is charged. That means you can easily block it with an Ice Dampener, but the threat of Bufudyne also means you cannot have anyone weak to Ice in your party. Both Hades Blast and Brave Blade can deal some huge damage to your party, as they are both heavy attacks. Likewise, Mighty Cleave can be even more dangerous, as it always inflicts a critical. The good thing, though, is that Mighty Cleave has low accuracy, but the Decarabias using Masukukaja will make sure that the attack connects more often.

That’s why it’s imperative you have some way to debuff Arioch’s accuracy, or just get rid of the buffs. Additionally, there is no way that any of the enemies can remove your buffs or the other debuffs, so you are more than welcomed to go ham with those. Matarunda on the enemies and Marakukaja on your party should make things a little less hectic. Arioch is weak to Electric, while being resistant to both Force and Dark, and reflecting Ice. If you are using a magic build for the Nahobino, then you should still have Ruinous Thunder, which will be a huge help here. It will also help to have a healer for this battle, with Kushinade-Hime fulfilling that role perfectly. Clotho might fulfill the same role, but she is weak to Ice and you would need to cover that with a passive.