by Wakaba is the Final Boss of the Futaba Palace in Persona 5 Royal , as you can see this Palace is something different from the previous ones since the owner of the Palace is not the final boss of it.
It is more or less the Shadow of the Mother of Futaba (you will understand why I say more or less later in the game) and it is a boss that stands out for having very good damage and also being quite resistant; On top of that, since he’s almost always flying, you won’t be able to use melee physical attacks.
The truth is that it is a somewhat complicated boss if you don’t know its mechanics well, otherwise it becomes a fairly simple boss. So nothing, let’s go with the guide!
BATTLE PREPARATION AND WEAKNESSES
Some tips to make things a lot easier:
- Joker’s Persona : In this combat it will be great if you equip a Persona that has good physical attacks (if you have a powerful ranged attack, even better). If you don’t have it, it’s not a problem either, but it will come in handy.
- Take Ryuji or Yusuke : Wakaba is a very weak boss to physical attacks and both have a good physical arsenal. Also, I always recommend taking Morgana as she is the best healer in the game. Of course, keep something very important in mind, if you take Ryuji you must equip him with the Ring of Vanity (obtained with Madarame’s Seeds of Desire ) to nullify his weakness to Wind, which is the element with which this boss attacks . Likewise, he doesn’t use a Wind-weak Persona with Joker.
- Use Tarunda : This ability allows us to reduce the Attack of an enemy (this boss does not have any type of companion) for 3 turns, something that will be VERY useful. Remember that Ann possesses this ability.
- Equip the Ring of Gluttony : It is obtained through the Seeds of Desire in Kaneshiro’s Palace and after taking it to José (if you don’t have it, it has the same effect but it will cost more PE). It comes in very handy because it gives us an ability to increase the Defense of the entire group for 3 turns.
- Bring PS and PE Medicines : You know, it’s always good to have.
- Items/Abilities to heal Ailed States : The Boss will apply Dizziness and Despair on us, so it’s good to have tools to remove these states; In any case, you can do it perfectly without resorting to them (you already value it according to the emergency of the moment). In addition, in the Airsoft shop you can buy accessories to better resist these altered states, something that can come in handy in this battle.
Keep in mind that although it is true that this boss takes a lot of damage from Physical Attacks, he is not weak to the element as such either. In fact, he doesn’t have weaknesses like other bosses like Kamoshida for example .
STRATEGY TO DEFEAT SHADOW OF WAKABA
We will divide the battle into 3 phases:
PHASE 1: DEFENSIVE PRECOMBAT
The first phase is VERY dangerous, especially if you don’t know this boss well, I’ll tell you. It turns out that this is a phase in which we must simply defend ourselves (the objective is not to die) since we have to wait a bit until an event is activated in which Futaba will join us in battle and until that happens the boss causes a barbarity of damage.
So the key will be to use Tarunda and the ability to increase Defense of the whole group (Vault Guardian) to make it much easier to survive Wakaba’s hard hits. As soon as you have these abilities active, simply use the “Defend” command and wait for the aforementioned Futaba event to occur.
PHASE 2: FUTABA AND THE BALLISTA
Now the real battle will begin and we will have Futaba’s help for it. You will have to go attacking while trying to keep surviving (the boss will no longer be as deadly as in Phase 1, but still has a lot of damage; see using Tarunda and Vault Guardian), do not go on the offensive because there will be a moment when the one that will be when you will really have to pull all your offense to the maximum, not at the beginning.
You will see that very occasionally the boss will say things to Futaba to warm her head and you will have to say something about it. Always choose the option in which you are supporting Futaba or opposing Wakaba (it is usually the option below), if you do it well the battle is much easier because Futaba will damage the boss with her UFO Persona.
After not too long, Futaba will tell you that you can use a Ballista there to hit the boss. You will have to choose one of your characters, in my case I chose Ryuji because he can’t do much in this battle at the moment (it will be soon when he will spread). Obviously do not choose your Healer , nor the characters that give support by applying Tarunda and so on; always the most expendable (poor Ryuji).
As soon as you choose it, after a while you will see a cinematic in which the character you have chosen will start moving the Ballista to aim. Nothing will happen for now, but I recommend that just when this first cinematic appears, you take advantage of it to boost the damage of your characters or to reduce the boss’s defenses. This is because shortly you will have a phase in which you can deal a lot of damage to the boss.
PHASE 3: TO EAT SOIL
When the second Ballista cinematic appears, you’ll fire a massive bolt at Wakaba and in addition to taking some damage, he’ll fall to the ground. You’ll have a few clean turns to hit her at will because she won’t attack and you’ll also be able to use non-ranged physical attacks (that’s why you had to boost your team’s damage a little earlier).
Now it’s time for Ryuji/Yusuke/Joker with Physical Persona since you will deal a lot of damage with physical attacks and the boss will not be flying around anymore. Use your best physical abilities with all your characters and you will see how fast their health is going down; in fact, if you play it right, your battle against this boss will probably end here. Otherwise nothing happens either, the boss will return to Phase 2 and you will have to repeat the process, but if it happens you probably have e Wakaba practically on its last legs.
