Is grinding necessary?

So I've been playing the game for quite some time and have mostly been really enjoying it. However, I think I'm on the 3rd boss, in the bath house. But I'm getting killed by him quite a bit, I've killed his enemies at his side 3 out of my 4 tries but after that I'm dead a few turns after. Basically I just wanted to ask if I should grind back up the dungeon to gain more levels? Or is there a better way to go about this? Kind of regret not setting the combat on east since I enjoy the other stuff much better but the combat for the most part is fun, just definitely gets a bit tough I think.

For the most part no, Very Hard/Risky is the only mode that requires grinding. This game is relatively easy compare to the original release.

You should try to level around 10 levels each dungeon and try not to skip fights,as for Kanji's Dungeon you should be around 25.

@sackmanjones: Wuts up babby? Why you look'n all sad?

There ain't nothing wrong.

WITH A LITTLE BUMP AND GRIND

Well I'm currently at level 20 so I will probably need to grind up the dungeon again

It really depends on how you play. The only part I had to grind on is for the Heaven boss.

@sackmanjones said:

Hmm - that boss is made much easier if you have a persona which resists physical. But yeah, the game is designed such that if you fight everything (not including respawns) and fully explore every level of the dungeon (way easier than it sounds) you are in the right ballpark for the final boss of that dungeon.

For a rule of thumb, Kanji's dungeon is easiest beaten at lvl25+ , the next one at 35+, then 45+ (you see the pattern here).

Perhaps you beat Yukiko at a lower level than intended, which makes sense since she is much easier in Golden than she was in the original - people were generally lvl13-15 when they beat Yukiko first time through, and this is where I think a lot of people have problems with Kanji's dungeon. It's one of the only instances that playing well puts you behind the curve.

Anyway, as a tip for grinding, only ever bother grinding on the last 2 levels of any dungeon. Anything else (such as running it from the base again) is a waste of time, especially since chests respawn as soon as you leave a level now - so cycling 2 levels still nets you plenty. There are only a handful of exceptions to this rule, so stick with it for now.

Oh - and make sure that you keep your MC's personas up to date. Walking into that fight at lvl99 will barely mean anything if you have an underpowered lvl20 persona equipped.

Well if you don't want to get pregnant but still want a good time you grind. Yukiko and I grind all the time, oh.....your talking about something else

@sackmanjones: Since in Golden you don't have to leave the TV world for dungeons to repopulate you can just keep grinding on the second to last level of the dungeon. Start at the top level, then go down one, once you've wiped that floor hit square and select move to next floor. Then rinse and repeat.

That's what i've done right before i fight the boss when i felt i wasn't a high enough level. If the shadows on the 2nd to last floor start to look smaller then that's a sign that your probably ready for the boss.

Also, what @selfconfessedcynic said, keep fusing so you have a high level persona. If you've been keeping up with your S-links you should be able to fuse personas 5 lvls above you(with bonus xp).

This is not true on every difficulty playing a New game plus on very easy I am about ten levels higher then anything I can fuse, assuming i am not using anything I had gotten from my last game.

@dagbiker: If by everything you got in the last game, you mean you are staying away from the compendium in general, sure.

Well, not entirely so - if you really wanted to, you could get however many random persona you can, fuse them once to make something 10 levels lower than you and then fuse them again to make something around your level if not higher. Also note that there are plenty of special fusions (4-way etc) that are pretty well distributed across the level curve (eg. black frost is pretty great for his level) - and triple fusions produce higher level persona than double fusions.

Yes, I am Level 99, rocking a level 70 persona. at endgame.

@dagbiker: Haha - talk about an exception to the general rule : )

I never had the need to grind although that was just on the overly easy normal mode. I just went through all the dungeons the second time, used the persona level up and stat increase cards whenever i got them if i had the persona in that i wanted to keep going with (hence why i have a lvl 99 black frost). I was always at least 5+ levels higher then the level of the final boss for each new dungeon and never once grinded any dungeon because i needed to.