Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne (SMT Nocturne)

Magatama Tier List: Best Magatamas

This is Game8's Magatama Tier List for Shin Megami Tensei 3: Nocturne (SMT Nocturne). Take a look at our top-rated Magatama and why you should be using them!

Guide to Magatama

Magatama are bugs that grant the Demi-Fiend different skills and stats. It also affects the Demi-Fiend's strengths and weaknesses. In addition, the element of the Magatama affects the Demi-Fiend's race.

Magatama also enable the Demi-Fiend to learn more powerful abilities as he levels up. The brightness or dimness, as well as the behavior of a Magatama's icon signify whether there are new skills to learn or all the skills a Magatama grants has been learned.

Brightness / Behavior Meaning
Magatama Skill Several Levels New skill can be learned at the next level.
Magatama Next Level Skill New skill can be learned after a few more levels.
Magatama Few More Levels New skill can be learned after several more levels.
Mastered Magatama All skills have been learned.

Magatama Tier-List

Best Magatama

Best Magatama
Masakados MagatamaMasakados

S- Tier

S Rank Icon Gaea
Kamudo
Murakumo
Geis
Sophia
Kailash

A- Tier

A Rank Icon Marogareh
Iyomante
Narukami
Ankh
Vimana

B- Tier

B Rank Icon Gehenna
Hifumi
Miasma
Shiranui
Wadatsumi
Djed
Kamurogi
Satan
Gundari

C- Tier

C Rank Icon Anathema
Nirvana
Muspell
Adama

Magatama Rank Explanation

Here are the reasons why each Magatama made it into our different tiers! Use the navigation table to quickly jump to the section for each rating.

Magatama Tiers
S Rank Icon S Rank Icon A Rank Icon
B Rank Icon C Rank Icon

Best Magatama (SS)

Masakados

Masakados is the best Magatama. It has no weaknesses (Almighty attacks can only deal damage to you, but you are not susceptible to it), has absurd stat bonuses, learns end-game spells and Repel skills, and virtually turns you into a Null:Fiend due to it nullifying virtually everything (aside Almighty) enemies can throw at you. This Magatama is a tier on its own.

S- Tiers

Gaea

Gaea is in S- Tier due to its simple, overwhelming stats and learnable skills. It's weaknesses become less apparent as you level it up. Once mastered, you can learn supplemental or Null skills from other Magatama to cover its weaknesses.

Additionally, once mastered, the weaknesses won't matter, as it's very likely that you'll wipe out the enemy party before they can even retaliate, War Cry and Attack All.

Kamudo

Kamudo is in S- Tier due to being available very early on in the game, as well as having strong stats and learnable skills. Once mastered, you can learn supplemental or Null skills from other Magatama to cover its weaknesses.

Being able to learn Focus early game makes Kamudo worth being an S- Tier.

Murakumo

Murakumo is in S- Tier due to its excellent supplemental skills. Being able to negate Ailments is extremely helpful for any build, especially for Physical fighter builds (which are significantly weakened by Poison, amongst others).

Geis

Geis is definitely S- Tier due to the absurd amount of healing skills you can learn from it, especially the Mediarama (which will be a crucial skill when fighting tough, party-wide damage dealing Bosses).

Granted, it has one of the highest number of skills to learn, but all its skills complement any kind of roster. Added with well-balanced Stat Bonuses, Light Nullification, and no glaring weakness, this Magatama is definitely a great choice for any player of any build and roster.

Sophia

Sophia earns its place in S- Tier due to its great stat bonuses, a surprisingly good set of learnable skills, and having no weakness while nullifying Light attacks. Mediarahan will definitely shine against Bosses and enemies that can deal extreme amounts of damage, or do effects like reducing your HP to 1.

Kailash

Kailash is definitely S-Tier due to its high stat boost to MAG and VIT, normal resistance, as well as the Almighty element magic you can learn from it. Those factors alone make it S-Tier. What solidifies its rank here is the skill Freikugel, an Almighty physical attack. This skill alone can help carry you in the very late parts of the game, especially in the Tower of Kagutsuchi. Not only is the Almighty element of this skill powerful, but when buffed with Tarukaja or other buffs that increase damage output, this skill can very easily destroy targets.

A- Tiers

Marogareh

Marogareh, the default Magatama, is well-rounded (as is expected of a default Magatama), but not without its excellent parts. Analyze, Life Bonus, and Counter are the skills that made Marogareh fit into this rank. These skills, as well as having standard resistance and no actual weaknesses, makes it a great Magatama to use.

Additionally, for players with DLCs, this Magatama learns a final bonus skill, Pierce. It's a perfect skill for Physical builds, and is overall a great skill. But this skill is not enough to make Marogareh into S-Tier, as there are not many Demons with Phys Repel (like Arahabaki), and Demons with high Phys resistance can be instead whittled down by your teammates.

Iyomante

Iyomante is a solid A- Tier Magatama due to having excellent utility skills. Having these buffs and debuffs early in the game are a great asset to any team, and allows for more manageable fights. These factors, as well as having no elemental weakness and having Mind attack nullification, makes it an excellent choice as a supplementary Magatama after mastering your preferred Magatama beforehand.

Ankh

Ankh looks weak at first glance, but can easily be mastered due to having only three (but extremely useful) skills. It is in A- Tier because of the speed you can master it and the skills it possesses, especially Media.

Having healing skills for any roster is crucial, and if you are still unsure on how to build your Demi-Fiend, mastering Ankh while being able to heal your party during sticky situations and confirming your preferred build all at the same time makes this Magatama worth A- Tier.

Narukami

Narukami is an Elec focused Magatama. It has the ability to strengthen your Elec attacks while making you immune to it, as well great bonuses to STR and MAG. It is these bonuses that separate it from the B- Tier element focused Magatamas. With these extra bonuses, it gives you the option of going for a fistfight if your magic won't cut it.

Vimana

Vimana is an extremely solid Magatama. Well-balanced stats, great array of learnable skills, and no weakness! What prevents it from ascending to S-Tier is the high HP cost of its party-wide skills, like Javelin Rain. The Magatama DOES give you a workaround on this, through Life Surge, but the HP cost of these skills aren't fixed, they work on percentages. So regardless of your high health pool, it will still take a significant amount of HP. The best way to offset this is having a healer in your roster, or having some form of battle sustain, like Drain Attack.

B- Tiers

Most of the B- Tier Magatamas are the single element focused Magatamas, which makes your Demi-Fiend specialize in one general element. There's the choice of having a mix of elements in you skillset, but this just makes your Demi-Fiend a half-baked spellcaster at that elemental field, and not being able to reach the specialized peak for one element, sacrificing total dominance in that element for combat versatility.

Gehenna

Gehenna is a Fire focused Magatama. Having strong Fire skills while at the same time being able to Nullify or Absorb fire damage is definitely a big plus, but this means that your whole skillset will revolve around Fire, which can be limiting and its own weakness. Due to having a glaring weakness to Ice, and not being generally versatile against common Demons, but also being specialized and useful in the field of Fire, makes this Magatama B-Tier.

Shiranui

Shiranui is a Fire focused Magatama. Having decent Fire skills while at the same time being able to resist fire damage is an advantage, but this means that your whole skillset will revolve around Fire, which can be limiting and its own weakness. Due to having a glaring weakness to Ice, and not being generally versatile against common Demons, but also being specialized and useful in the field of Fire, makes this Magatama B-Tier.

Additionally, this Magatama is a predecessor of sorts to Gehenna.

Miasma

Miasma is an Ice focused Magatama. Having strong Ice skills while at the same time being able to Nullify or Absorb ice damage is definitely good, but this means that your whole skillset will revolve around Ice, which can be limiting and its own weakness. Due to having a glaring weakness to Fire, and not being generally versatile against common Demons, but also being specialized and useful in the field of Ice, makes this Magatama B-Tier.

Wadatsumi

Wadatsumi is an Ice focused Magatama. Having decent Ice skills while at the same time being able to resist ice damage is great, but this means that your whole skillset will revolve around Ice, which can be limiting and its own weakness. Due to having a glaring weakness to Fire, and not being generally versatile against common Demons, but also being specialized and useful in the field of Ice, makes this Magatama B-Tier.

Additionally, this Magatama is a predecessor of sorts to Miasma.

Hifumi

Hifumi is a Force focused Magatama. Having decent Force skills and bonuses, while at the same time being able to Nullify force damage is certainly an advantage, but this means that your whole skillset will revolve around Force, which can be limiting and its own weakness. Additionally, many early game enemies are resistant or immune to Force (like Kodamas and Sudamas, which are very common). Due to having a weakness to Fire (though given that not many enemies cast Fire spells often), and not being entirely versatile against most Demons, but also being specialized and useful in the field of Force, makes this Magatama B-Tier.

Djed

Djed is a simple Buffing Magatama. It has a good amount of stat bonus for MAG, and small bonuses to the other stats. It also nullifies Curse attacks and has no glaring weakness. But aside from that, everything else is lackluster. Being lackluster doesn't mean it's useless. Not at all. It's actually very versatile and can work with any build for Demi-Fiend and complements any party roster. But the buff skills you learn through this Magatama are the basic skills of low-level Demons, or can be learned quickly by said low-level Demons. Overall, it's an average Magatama. Not good, but not bad either.

Kamurogi

Kamurogi is a great Physical damage Magatama. It has very good stat bonuses to parameters involved in dealing Physical damage. It has a great, well-balanced array of skills grounded on Phys. What makes it B-Tier is its glaring weakness of having susceptibility to ALL Magic attacks, which is definitely not good. If you are hit with a Magic attack, you sustain more damage, and give the enemy more turns to hurt you with. If this weakness is mitigated with Magic reflection or resistance Items/Skills, then Kamurogi will be able to perform its best for you.

Satan

Satan is a well-varied Magic Magatama, with high stats for MAG and small bonuses to the other stats. However, the skills you learn from this Magatama, aside from Jive Talk, are all pretty lackluster and lacking in strong practical use. There is no need to learn the Null: Dark skill if you're already equipping this Magatama. Plus, this Magatama makes you susceptible to Light attacks, which are pretty common in the World Map when fighting Principalities. The only thing keeping this Magatama in B-Tier is Jive Talk, an extremely useful skill for recruiting more powerful Demons.

Gundari

Gundari is a late-game Magatama that comes with a limited set of Force and Physical skills. It's best skill is the Wind Cutter, which players can learn as the Magatama's first learned skill. This is one of the better magical spells that a MAG Build Demi-fiend can possibly have. However, everything else about Gundari is mediocre. Force Drain is useless outside of specific situations, while Spiral Viper is outclassed by its fellow Phys Skills. With so many of the late-game Magatama having better offerings than Gundari, Wind Cutter is the only thing keeping it in B-tier.

C- Tiers

Magatamas in the C- Tier are lackluster and/or are too niche. Though not useless, their results and versatility are too varied and too unpredictable to be consistently used in exploration and fights. As such, they are still useful in specific situations, but not most situations.

Anathema

Anathema is a Dark-element Magatama. It has two Dark one-hit skills, with its last skill giving a higher chance to one-hit kill a whole party. Mudo skills are definitely very strong, but they play on a high-risk, high-reward scheme, which is not a very wise choice in a game that punishes you for missing a skill or having it blocked. The high MAG bonus aside, this Magatama is too specialized and niche to be consistent and reliable, add in the factor that there are an abundance of Dark-element Demons in the game, making Mudo skills more of a disadvantage than an advantage.

Nirvana

Nirvana is a Light-element Magatama. It has lackluster skills in it, but has a high Luck stat bonus, which is not much, since Luck is more of an RNG-reliant stat. Aside from being able to Nullify Hama skills, and having a pretty average Physical skill, this Magatama has no other strong points than that. Hama skills are very dangerous, yes, but not many Demons pack that hit-or-miss instakill skill. And if nullifying or resisting Light damage from Light attacks is what you want, you would be better off just increasing VIT stats or get a Magatama that has Life Bonus, Life Gain, or Life Surge, since HP bonuses are consistent and do not work on an incosistent factor such as luck and RNG.

Adama

Adama is not a bad Magatama, per se. It just so happens that this Magatama is an obvious Elec magic caster boost Magatama. It's meant to be learned as fast as possible to complement other builds and Magatama, like Narukami, then immediately replaced by more useful Magatama.

Muspell

There's no other way to slice it, but Muspell is a bad Magatama. The skills you learn from it are very niche and below average. Additionally, going for a full Dark build is a bad idea in this game, as many Demons are immune or resistant to it. The only good you can get from this Magatama is its strength in dealing Ailments, as well as the high stat bonuses for MAG and VIT.

Magatama Criteria

Our Magatama Tier-List is based on the following criteria and factors:

  • Stat Bonuses
  • Strength/s
  • Weakness/es
  • Skills Learned
  • Versatility in Regard to Builds
  • Versatility in Regard to Party Composition
  • Versatility in Regard to Enemy Demons

All Stats Explained

Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne Related Guides

Magatama

List of Magatama

List of Magatamas

List of Magatamas
dark magatamaMarogareh neutral MagatamaWadatsumi light magatamaAnkh light magatamaIyomante
dark magatamaShiranui neutral MagatamaHifumi neutral MagatamaKamudo light magatamaNarukami
dark magatamaAnathema dark magatamaMiasma light magatamaNirvana neutral MagatamaMurakumo
light magatamaGeis neutral MagatamaDjed dark magatamaMuspell neutral MagatamaGehenna
light magatamaKamurogi dark magatamaSatan light magatamaAdama neutral MagatamaVimana
dark magatamaGundari light magatamaSophia dark magatamaGaea neutral MagatamaKailash
masakados magatamaMasakados

Magatama Tier List

Comment

1 Shuazillaover 3 years

The Magatama movement/brightness meanings chart is wrong. The first one (not moving at all) means you won't learn the next skill for five or more levels. The second one (shaking the fastest and glowing brightest) means you'll learn the next skill next level up. The third one on your chart doesn't pertain to skills at all. The red ring just means you currently have it equipped. The 4th one is the only correct one. The shake speed determines how many levels until you unlock the next skill

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