Pisca. Man, that fish-thing almost made me quit. Seriously.
I started Persona 3 Reload thinking, “Okay, this is a remake, I know the drill, just grind a little, hit its weakness, done.” No sweat. But this Pisca fight? It felt like one of those old-school JRPGs where the developers just chucked a wall in front of you just to be jerks. I gotta share the whole messy process because what actually worked was so dumb and obvious, I missed it for hours. And hours.
First day, I went in blind. I brought Yukari because, you know, healer. I brought Junpei because he hits things hard. I thought, “Okay, it’s a big shadow, probably weak to Fire or Electric.” Nope. I slammed it with Agi, resisted. Zio, resisted. Bufu, resisted. I even threw a Garu at it, just to check. You guessed it, resisted. This thing was a goddamn sponge. It just kept pounding us with those physical moves. Every time I thought I had a handle on the health bar, one of its stupid little buddies would pop up, and boom, we were back to square one.
I tried sticking with just physical attacks, thinking maybe the resistance was magic only. That just ended with Junpei and the Protagonist eating huge damage from counter-attacks and the fight dragging on. I must have wasted three in-game weeks trying to level up just to overpower it, but the scaling felt brutal. The grind was starting to kill my actual real-life sleep schedule. My wife was giving me the side-eye every morning because I was waking up looking like a zombie.
It was exactly like that time I was trying to get this embedded systems project done at my old company. Everything was “Go, Go, Go!” until the testing phase, and then everything would suddenly fail. The documentation was a mess, the code was spaghetti, and the manager kept pretending it was fine. I fought that manager every day for two months because he refused to fix the core problem, just like I was trying to brute-force Pisca instead of finding its actual design flaw.
I even yelled at the TV at 3:00 AM on the third night. Seriously. I was ready to quit the game and sell the console. I was so exhausted and stressed, I actually started wondering if I should just call in sick to my real job, which is a terrible idea since I just got this gig after leaving that awful embedded one. I realized I was making the same mistake: wasting resources on a flawed strategy instead of looking for the simple, hidden key. So, I took a breath. I stopped trying to hit an elemental weakness that didn’t exist.
My Pisca Exploit: The Shock/Crit Tech
I started from scratch. I scanned its moveset. I looked at what my teammates actually had. Not what I wanted them to have, but what they had right now. The breakthrough came when I realized I needed to stop worrying about the classic “weakness” and start focusing on the Technical status effects. Forget the elements for a minute. The goal is Knockdown (KD) and All-Out Attack (AOA).
This is what I executed, and it worked, first try, after three days of pure failure:
Loadout Prep:
- Protagonist needs a Persona with Electric damage (Zio). This is key. Even if it resists, the goal is not damage, but status.
- Protagonist also needs a Persona with a decent Critical chance skill, like a low-level physical skill.
- I kept Yukari for healing, but switched Akihiko in for Junpei. Why? Akihiko has Electric damage and his ability to debuff the enemy’s defense is massive.
- The final slot went to Mitsuru for her ice magic and her high chance to hit a crit.
The Strategy (The Real Work):
The whole fight revolved around the Protagonist and Akihiko chaining Shock and Critical Hits to set up a Technical. We didn’t bother targeting its elemental resistance, we targeted its status vulnerability.
First turn, Akihiko slapped Pisca with a Zio. It resisted, but guess what? It didn’t nullify the chance for Shock. Shock status is what we needed to get a Technical going.
- Turn 1: Akihiko Zio (Attempt Shock). Protagonist guards. Yukari guards. Mitsuru guards. We waited for the status.
- If Shock landed (it lands pretty often, thank God), the next turn was the money shot.
- Turn 2: Protagonist launched a physical attack, anything that had a decent crit chance, or just a basic Strike/Slash attack. When an enemy is Shocked, a physical attack (Strike, Slash, Pierce) triggers a Technical hit. That Tech hit often resulted in a Knockdown. This is the hidden weakness!
- Once Pisca was KD, we immediately called for the All-Out Attack.
The AOA crushed about a third of its health every single time. It was insane. It took two rounds of this Shock/Technical/AOA combo, maybe three if the damage roll was bad, and the big fish was just done. Flattened. No more grinding. No more screaming at the screen. That victory, man, it felt like getting that new embedded job with decent pay and a boss who actually listens—the relief was massive.
Seriously, ditch the elemental chase. Focus on the Shock. Land the Technical. Unleash the AOA. That’s how you shut this thing down. Don’t be like me, wasting three days because the solution was hiding behind a simple status effect that the game doesn’t exactly scream at you about. Go get ’em.
