Demon Race: Elements and Mitamas
Our final demon breakdown, and due to the non-standard nature of both the Races, it's a two-for-one special! You know when I first started writing these as a fun way to add to the LP, I optimistically figured I'd be done with it halfway through the game, and now here we are over 30 parts in and approaching the ending. Anyway, Elements and Mitamas are formed under unique fusion circumstances: Elements are created via fusing two demons of the same Race with the resultant Element dependent on the Races used with a 1000 Macca catalyst fee require to fuse them, while Mitamas are created by fusing Elements together and take a 3000 Macca catalyst fee to fuse. As you can see from the skill lists, neither Race has a Race skill and are not intended for use in combat or tactics. Instead, Elements and Mitamas have unique effects when used in Fusion, and are key for customizing demons with skills they'd have a hard time getting without extensive fusion chains.
Let's start with Elements. Elements have the unique property that when used in fusion, they will cause the demon they fuse with to either "Rank Up" or "Rank Down". Essentially, they move demons along the tiers of available demons within their race, eg. fusing a Jack Frost with an Aeros results in a Pyro Jack, the next highest leveled Fairy demon from Jack Frost. The exact effect each Element has on each Race is compiled in this handy-dandy chart that was made by Gipig on GameFAQS.
As you can see, most Races have at least one Element that results in an upgrade, while Megamis, Deitys, Viles and Tyrants can only ever Rank Down. For the most part, the main draw of Elements is what I've been doing towards the back half of the game, converting your existing demons into stronger new demons that become available as you level up. Since demon races tend to follow similar builds throughout their roster with only the occasional outliers, this can allow you to carry down useful skills and a tidy stat inheritance through fusion. As demonstrated with demons like Cu Chulainn, this can be very effective in maintaining a strong archetype demon throughout the game. I know what you're thinking, is there any purpose for Ranking Down? For the most part, not really. It's helpful for obtaining missed demons in the compendium, just fusing the strongest thing and continually depowering it to hit all missed spots, but as far as practical use goes I can't really think of a reason you'd want a weaker demon in the main game. It does have some use on New Game +, where you can create a strong Loki and then rank him down to create a strong Astaroth and then a strong Hecate, but that's about it. You do need to be mindful of Inheritance when using Element fusion, as just raw fusing an element can result in the gradual loss of bonus stats overtime. Fortunately, there's nothing stopping you from grabbing the weakest demons of a Race, powerleveling and then fusing them together, and then scooping up a few levels for the Element to get some extra inheritance into the mix. Are any of the Elements particularly notable beyond their Rank Up ability? Well, Flaemis actually does have some use beyond that, as he has Maragi and Fire Boost by default. Around the time you can initially create him, this is a very powerful skill combo and can be used to easily create strong casters on Day 3, provided the targeted demon can rank up from being fused with Flaemis. Past that, Elements are only ever going to be as notable as the skills they can reap from the component demons to create them. It is worth noting that in the early game, the catalyst fee makes Elements too expensive to use and they generally impart poor inheritances, so I wouldn't pay them much mind up until about Day 4. Past that point, the catalyst fee becomes an increasing non-factor while the benefits of upgrading your existing demons start to become more substantial. They're even more worthwhile once we can easily create Mitamas and gain greater control of the skills on our demons.
Mitamas have an even more unique impact on Fusion. When a Demon is fused with a Mitama, the end result is actually the same demon that was being fused off with the Mitama. (eg. I fused Hecate with Nigi Mitama and got another Hecate) Instead of Ranking up or down demons, Mitamas instead convey a statistical bonus to a demon, plus the opportunity to respec the demons skills. Each Mitama has a preferred stat, and when they are fused onto a demon, the recipient demon gets +3 to that preferred stat. Saki Mitama gives +3 VI, Kusi Mitama gives +3 AG, Ara Mitama gives +3 ST, and Nigi Mitama gives +3 MA. These stat boosts are considered bonus stats, so if a demon is over their Bonus stat cap but can still boost the targeted stat, points will be deducted from their less preferred stats and funneled into the stat that is being boosted. In the event a stat to be boosted is capped, the Mitama has no impact on stats but still offers the chance to shuffle around the demons skills. When a Mitama is fused onto a demon, the skills that the Mitama has are put into the selectable skill pool alongside the skills of the recipient demon. With this, you can remove skills you don't want from the target demon and use the Mitama to place any skill you could ever want onto the target demon. There is a limitation to this, any skill that is a part of the demons default skill set (That is, anything that would always be there if you were to just run a basic fusion of the demon) cannot be removed. While this doesn't matter too much for Command skills since they can be overwritten by Magnetite Overloads (interestingly default skills that were overwritten become locked to the demon and function the same way in Mitama fusion), it is an important thing to consider with Passive skills, which there are no ways to remove. This is why I've drawn attention to demons with open passive lists, because they can freely swap out their passives for whatever works best for them. Demons who have one or two pre-filled passive slots will always have less options than demons who have completely open passive lists, and frankly most demons with two filled passive slots tend to have sub-optimal passives that really hamper their long term effectiveness. Mitamas are key for creating the strongest demons in the game, and you will be using them heavily to prep for the ultimate bonus boss should you elect to take him on. In the main game, the catalyst fee does cut into how much you can spam these out, and they have very high compendium costs, but they are just cheap enough via fusion that it's not too much of a hassle to create them for augmenting demons with less than ideal passives by the time Day 7 rolls around.
