Astaroth is an insanely fast physical attacker whose main attack, Lord Astaroth, can easily destroy a single enemy, and if it connects, it will proc a second attack. Enemies killed by either attack will be forbidden from reviving, allowing him to seal up to two enemies while dealing a Critical hit (preserving his turn), increasing his team's Attack and Accuracy/Evasion by 20% and lowering the enemy's Defense and Evasion by the same amount, and allowing his passive, Master of Hell, to give his team another turn, which can make all the difference in a game based on Intimidating Stance and Cerberus A and Masakado A's turn manipulation. One clear sign of how obscenely powerful he is that ever since his release, Sega has released a few new PvE contents with enemies that possess Phys Reduction or Phys Reduction+ just to make Astaroth not viable against those enemies.
Maria's capabilities as a Support Party Member are so powerful that she's generally considered to be one of the best demons in the game based on that alone. This is all thanks to two incredibly loaded passives — Stella Maris increases her max HP by 50%, grants immunity to all status ailments (including instant death), and increases the amount of MP each party member regenerates each turn, while Miracle of Fatima removes revive seals, gives all allies a one-turn Luster Candy effect, and heals them whenever an ally is downed. Also, if you haven't wiped out her party by the end of your turn, it revives them with full HP, giving them an opportunity for a countersweep. She gets even better with Panels, which give her access to interesting things like a discounted Salvation with increased uses, a full defensive buff swing at the start of the enemy's turn, and an additional 20% increase to her HP.
Arioch. On top of having obscene HP, he gives himself Bulwark at the start of battle which gives him additional 3,000 HP, and a one turn Null Mortal in case you want to snipe him ASAP. Once you fail to kill him, he will give himself Charge and Might, then unloads his Lionfall on your team, which all but guarantees a Total Party Kill. While he doesn't start with ailment immunity, his Protector self comes with the transferable skill Null Bind/Weak, so you can bet he will be immune to those.
Berserker Guts, after his kit was expanded in the Berserk rerun became an absolute monster that is at the very least equals Astaroth - his enhanced offensive abilities allow him to spam Berserk, which hurts even harder than Lord Astaroth and generate a Press Turn once per turn when him or an ally downs an enemy. If run alongside Demeter below, he can even be counted on for massive endurance, since Berserker Armor and Demeter's Bulwarks shield him to an impressive degree from all enemy damage and remove the timebomb that is the damage at the end of the enemy turn. While slower than Astaroth, it isn't by much, and with his insane built-in accuracy (he has 40% from Great Aim and Berserker Armor's levels) he easily reaches the same brutal tier.
Erlkonig is notorious for its stubborn refusal to die — between its own obscene bulk, Panels that increase it even further, Power of Life, the healing from its unique passive Alder King, the attack debuff that Alder King inflicts at the start of the enemy turn, and the accompanying party-wide Defense buff from Panel 3, it has the perfect toolkit for surviving an incredibly long time. Unlike similarly tanky demons, who tend to be vulnerable to Mortal, Erlkonig has access to Null Mortal in Purple, so even that isn't a foolproof countermeasure. As if all of that wasn't enough, they tend to carry Recarmdra as a transfer skillnote It also gets it as an Awakened skill in Yellow, but by doing that you lose out on Null Mortal, so they can revive their entire party when you inevitably fail to kill it before your turn ends.
Elohim is a death sentence with his Solar Flare, that is not only cheap (5 MP; if paneled, it drops to 4 MP, allowing him to be run with Spell Brands), a horrendously-high damage ST skill that triggers Remnants, so it only consumes half a press turn, and triggers a free Maragidyne that will hit everyone else hard, while giving everyone after him a free Tarukaja and Rakunda, and if anyone, including him, gets a kill, he'll trigger yet another Maragidyne with his lethal Light of Elohim. Considering he has some of the highest stats on both AGI and MA (turning him into both the 3rd fastest/strongest magic attacker demon in the game), he will not only delete any demons on his way including Maria, Arioch, and Erlkonig , but he can do it all by himself, even if all those 3 are in the same party, and given he has innate Fire Accele and speed boosts on his panels, he's almost guaranteed to outspeed and demolish slow parties.
Shaddai is another of the Two Press Turn consuming demons, but his real worth is in his ability to nullify the Half-Press Turns generated by Critical attacks. Coupling it with Maria and any other member from this list is sure to result in a tremendous slog as you battle to inflict the damage you need to overcome the enemy resurrection. He also has a fairly strong Almighty AOE attack, which can trigger a second wave of damage when it hits during a half-Press Turn.
Mithras can be coupled with Elohim to even worse effect. His Covenant Bless increases the damage all Fire and Light attacks his team inflicts by 40%, inflating his damage to absurd levels, and even triggers a followup attack of the same kind, and his Mark of Punishment is the perfect followup to Light of Elohim, a tremendous attack capable of switching between Light and Fire damage.
Amon is the perfect answer to Elohim, a Fire Repelling demon that automatically triggers a huge Bulwark each time he is hit by a Magic attack, up to four times, and automatically casts Concentrate ad the end of the enemy turn to power his Abyss Flare, which scales with Magical Defense, to annihilate any unwary teams without Demiurge or Alilat and something that can fling back his attack. If in Red Archetype, he has Abyss Flame, that allows him to practically delete any one single enemy, no matter how bulky.
Demeter is another insane defensive support demon. If the enemy goes first, she casts a 1500 HP Bulwark and 2 free MP, and she has access to Harvest's Blessing, which reduces enemy ATK and increases her own team's DEF. If the enemy hits anyone except her, her Eleusis' Blessing will throw up another wall of Bulwark and trigger a one-turn Luster Candy. As long as she is alive, any of her team with a Bulwark cannot suffer from any ailment, all but mandating her death as step one to defeat her team, which becomeas an insane slog if she has resurrectors such as Xi Wangmu or Maria. Her first panel reduces the amount of damage she takes while under a Bulwark, and the second one will trigger another Bulwark at the start of the enemy turn and proc another ATK debuff on them. As a final insult, her My Harvest! skill, while dealing underwhelming damage, has Remnants, and will raise up yet more Bulwarks and restore everyone's MP by 2, so at full level, she's perfectly capable of spamming it with abandon. All in all, a tremendously tough roadblock and a counterweight to the nastier heavy hitters such as Elohim.
Moloch is a hard counter against resurrectors. Not only does he further boost Fire damage by the same 40% as Mithras, his Blood Cradle passive ensures any revived demon comes back at a mere 1 HP and immediately murders them with a Maragidyne, effectively wasting the revival effect and further crippling the enemy.
All of the Evangelion demons, since their ability to slice past Bulwarks means that no matter how much Demeter struggles against them, they can easily shred enemy teams, particularly the Tenth Angel, as it actually benefits from having frail teammates, since he can fire its Rejection each time an ally falls, leaving them clear for his Ray of Ruin to nuke them back. The Sixth Angel, by the same token, can lay waste to enemy teams with its Impregnable and Last Nemesis just by virtue of going first. Unit 01 gives an extra Press Turn and inflicts a full buff to his team with its Demonic Sword and inflicts a full debuff to the enemy team along with a painful AOE attack once an enemy dies - by its hand or anyone else's.
