Persona 5 - US 2015 [PS3 & PS4] | The Royal (PS4) - March 31, 2020

[KuroTsuki]

For those having issues with SP, there are accessories you can get that replenish SP each turn by getting the

Spoiler: show

Death/Tae Takemi

confidant up to level 5. It can even be done before the second dungeon. They cost a lot, though. 40k/80k/100k.

[Seravi Edalborez]

Well I know who I'm spending time with.

I like that the not-Social-Links have more bonuses associated than just "persona exp fusion bullshit" this time around. Makes them feel more special and impactful.

Edit: For anyone having trouble with Negotiating for personas, they buried the personality thing in "oh read this on your time" tutorials:

Upbeat: +Joking answers, -Serious/Vague
Timid: +Kind, -Vague/Joking
Irritable: +Serious, -Vague/Kind
Gloomy: +Vague, -Serious/Joking

Positive responses will be met with music notes I believe, sweatmark will be neutral I guess and anger mark will be a minus. Probably need a net +1 to succeed.

[Corrderio]

Halfway through the 2nd palace

Spoiler: show

And now I got my 5th party member. Still debating if I should use him or not. I'd replace Mono but they're the only one that has decent healing skills

Well I know who I'm spending time with.

I like that the not-Social-Links have more bonuses associated than just "persona exp fusion bullshit" this time around. Makes them feel more special and impactful.

Edit: For anyone having trouble with Negotiating for personas, they buried the personality thing in "oh read this on your time" tutorials:

Upbeat: +Joking answers, -Serious/Vague
Timid: +Kind, -Vague/Joking
Irritable: +Serious, -Vague/Kind
Gloomy: +Vague, -Serious/Joking

Positive responses will be met with music notes I believe, sweatmark will be neutral I guess and anger mark will be a minus. Probably need a net +1 to succeed.

It seems to be somewhat random. There are times where I got a yellow (which I'm assuming is good) mark on my first response but something else on the 2nd and I didn't get a Persona, I think they left and gave me an item. One time I swore I got 2 yellow marks and they retreated instead of becoming one too.

[Voyage1970]

Negotiation depends on how "strong" the persona you are trying to capture is. If they are above your level (and without the Sun Confidant ability) they will leave an item even if you succeed in winning them over. If you are at level or slightly above they will require 2 positive answers or will otherwise leave behind an item.

Also as mentioned earlier the Death confidant will sell you SP regenerating accessories but more importantly the very next level of the confidant cuts all prices for Items/Accessories in half making the highest tier equip only 50k instead of 100k. Brewing coffee gets better as you raise the Heirophant confidant and early on you can make coffee that restores 30 SP to one ally. Further down the road you can start making Curry which restores 30 SP to the entire party and eventually Coffee/Curry that restores 100 SP. Raising Temperance will eventually let you pay money to avoid using up time to brew/cook so those items essentially become once a day purchases for 5k. Temperance also eventually allows you to do activities in the Evening even after going to a Palace.

As far as early persona to go for, try to cover all possible elements on the protagonist. Early on most groups of enemies will have 1-2 weakness at most so you can just swap after hitting all the weakness you can. Later once you get the ability to capture certain special persona you can create one with all element AoE spells for easy Hold-Outs or if you use the free Skill Card DLC you can make one with single target spells. Special mention to the Lucky set of skills (Lucky Punch, etc.) since they are useful for crits on enemies that have no weaknesses.

Try to get a persona with Rakunda (DEF down), Tarukaja (ATK up), and Sukukaja or Sukunda (Acc Up/Down). Status ailments are a bit of a hit or miss in these games but all enemies, bosses included, are susceptible to parameter debuffs and they are exceedingly powerful. Tarukaja+Rakunda alone is more than double damage and it lasts for 3 rounds. At the very least Rakunda is useful for all people attacking (it affects all damage done not just physical) and buff your strongest attacker with Tarukaja. Similarly if you find yourself getting rekt'd by bosses Tarunda will lower damage by a noticeable amount.

When it comes to deciding which physical skills to use always go for multi-hit attacks. The way damage calculation works heavily favors hitting multiple times in a single round compared to hitting once for "Heavy/Severe" damage. Skills like Rampage which you can get early on will outparse pretty much anything else except maybe a Baton Passed Rising Slash or Cross Slash (Izanagi DLC). Basically if something hits more than once treat it as +2 tiers to damage: Light dmg 2x = Heavy Damage, etc. Just to compare the strongest physical attack in the game is a Light dmg 8x skill simply because it hits 8x.

[Seravi Edalborez]

Echoing Rakunda/Tarunda recommendations. Rakunda comes on Jack-o'-lantern so it's very easy to end up having it in your fusions if necessary. Ryuji learns Tarukaja and Ann learns Tarunda so you do have those as secondary users of ATK up/down respectively.

[Corrderio]

Are there any alternative ways to get picklocks? Sucks having to waste my evening to make them. Assuming I don't have to farm silk thread

[Seravi Edalborez]

None that I know of. Save beforehand and try to make sure you get x2 out of one of your 2 sessions. 3 was enough for first palace, not counting the tutorial one given to you.

[Kirin]

I'm on April 18th I think. Probably going to take me 2 more trips into dungeon 1 before im done with it, including the calling card.

Feel like I'm behind on increasing parameters though, am I putting myself behind the ball taking 4-5 days on dungeon 1?

[Corrderio]

The first dungeon took me a bit to get through too. Though I'm breezing through the 2nd.

[Hioki]

Went through the second with no issues after I realized that "securing the infiltration route" doesn't mean there will be a boss at the end. I stopped early in the first dungeon thinking that there was going to be a big fight. Wasted a night, went back in after they were like "and now that we have a route, we can send a calling card. Let's leave.". I'm probably going to do a second run of the game to optimize out my confidants and such so not as worried.

[avelle]

Have never played a Persona game before. A friend of mine who has been a huge fan for a long time kept telling me I should get it and it is goty and everything else. I looked at a few streams and felt meh about it. Another friend of mine tells me about how great it is and that I should give it a shot. I give in and pick it up Wednesday evening.

I. Can't. Put. This. Shit. Down.

[Voyage1970]

Went through the second with no issues after I realized that "securing the infiltration route" doesn't mean there will be a boss at the end. I stopped early in the first dungeon thinking that there was going to be a big fight. Wasted a night, went back in after they were like "and now that we have a route, we can send a calling card. Let's leave.". I'm probably going to do a second run of the game to optimize out my confidants and such so not as worried.

I did the same thing and ending up wasting an evening by walking basically 10 feet. I will say though that this game is much more lenient with Confidant maxing in a single playthrough. You get access to pretty much all Confidants before the midway point and a lot of them are either automatically leveled up through story progression or based on specific tasks instead of having to spend time with them. Additionally some of the Confidants that are only available at a specific time, like the night only ones, will also raise a Social stat by a good amount so you kill 2 birds with one stone.

At the very least these games expect you to do a NG+ since your social stats, personas, level, money, etc carry over and maxing out social stats is easy to do so subsequent playthroughs have lots of spare time to focus on Confidants or other activities.

[Seravi Edalborez]

You could potentially do a palace in 2 runs, but I feel 3-4 is more realistic assuming they follow the same pattern as the first (2 minibosses before vault/calling card). I did first one in 3 and am on the 2nd now. I made it about 75% in on the first run and grinded quite a bit on stuff I could kill without SP just to earn a little more money. The final run after calling card is pretty much solely for the boss fight as none of the breakable loot will respawn as it does in other runs. Conserving SP is the key to going in deeper in one trip. Try to hit up the 100yen vending machine by the bathhouse every week (resets on mondays), as cheap SP recovery will add up before you have better options available.

Knowledge personal stat took forEVER to go from 1>2.

Edit: 2nd dungeon has at least one enforced "you must leave" roadblock so that's at least 3 trips.

[Gokulo]

I'm conflicted! [5th character spoilers]

Spoiler: show

At first I was pretty sure I wasn't going to use Yusuke, because his introduction and back story felt a lot less interesting than the rest, but then he transforms and whips out a goddamn katana. Now I have no choice :/

[Corrderio]

I'm conflicted! [5th character spoilers]

Spoiler: show

At first I was pretty sure I wasn't going to use Yusuke, because his introduction and back story felt a lot less interesting than the rest, but then he transforms and whips out a goddamn katana. Now I have no choice :/

Spoiler: show

I'm still debating who he'd replace. So far I like all of my initial team minus Mona but I need him for Media unless I can find a fusion with it for MC

[TheDirtyHobo]

High Pixie is the earliest you get Media afaik, but

Spoiler: show

you also get a media skill card like immediately after you get Yusuke, so you can give media to anyone.

[KuroTsuki]

There's a fusion that you can do as early as lv14 that gives you a persona with media as a starting skill. Name is Kushi Mitama.

[Voyage1970]

I hope someone compiles a list of negotiation answers because this shit is seriously pissing me off. Even the advice on the tutorial page isn't consistent with some of these persona. Belphegor is Irritable so he should want Serious answers but the correct answer to "Does this country even have a future?" was "Old people have bad manners." compared to the other options which directly addressed the question. Not sure how this game determines Serious answers but in my own internal logic just randomly bringing up old people doesn't seem serious to me.

[Omniyoji]

Anyone know what the "UP!!" symbol highlighted in blue mean? The icon on the city shortcut menu for confidants. I've noticed sometimes it's blue sometimes it's not highlighted.. ..

[KuroTsuki]

UP means they're going to rank up during that interaction. Not exactly sure on the blue vs gray. I thought it meant not accessible

Edit: Oh wow. Just learned that you can gain small bonuses in Knowledge by checking the TV downstairs from time to time. Just randomly checked it just now and it had a game show on. Answering the question correctly gives you a +1.