Persona 5 Strikersis a direct sequel to the originalPersona 5. While it does continue the story, this game is very different from the original in terms of gameplay, as the social links — which have defined the Persona series — are nonexistent.
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While there aren’t any social links, there is the Bond system, which gives your points to spend on upgrades as your team bonds closer together. Oftentimes, major story moments will reward you with bond points, along with every time a phantom thief levels up. There are many different skills to spend your points on, most of which can be leveled up more than once.
10HP Boost
Battles in Persona 5 Strikers can become very hectic very quickly. You’ll be fighting dozens of enemies at once, many stronger persona-type shadows, with others being simple guard shadows. With so many enemies running around, it’s easy to get hit more often than you intend.
This skill not only increases everyone’s HP, but it also has a decently low cost and many levels to be upgraded. This skill is very worthwhile to focus on early in the game, increasing your parties' base stats and making them more survivable in battle.
9Ammo Hoarder
Just like in Persona 5, guns are another option to use in combat. Each character’s gun operates differently and is usually a great option to thin out large groups of enemies. While guns can be incredibly effective, you’ll only have so many bullets to use for each fight.
Getting just a couple of upgrades of Ammo Hoarder will significantly increase the amount bullets you carry into each fight. With a few upgrades, you can make short work of any enemies weak to gun or any large group of weak shadows.
8Spirit Striker
SP is by far your most important stat for each character. SP is used to cast abilities that do elemental damage, heal, or buff your party. Even characters that focus on physical attacks will use SP to target the weakness of specific enemies.
Recovering SP in a longer boss fight is necessary to continue hitting their weakness, and Spirit Striker allows you to do just that. By focusing on 1-More attacks and All-Out Attacks, you’ll get more SP for the character you’re using and the whole party, respectively.
7Joker’s Wild
Like any other Persona game, the key to making Joker more powerful is fusing new personas and switching out the one Joker is using. This game offers no shadow negotiations and leaves getting new personas up to chance after defeating them in battle.
With Joker’s wild, you’ll not only have an easier time getting the mask of a powerful persona you can barely beat but also will have more available for fusions. Even weaker shadows can be fused together to pass specific skills along to your stronger personas.
SP is the most valuable stat you have that can be easily upgraded with this skill. All enemies have a weakness, and most are targeted through an elemental weakness more often than physical or gun attacks.
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As all characters in your party will often use these abilities to hit weaknesses, it’s best to have a large SP pool so you don’t run out mid-fight. This skill has many levels that can greatly increase your overall SP over time and make it much less of a concern when exploring a jail.
5Oracle Recovery
Managing your HP/SPand items is crucial in efficiently making it through a jail. While you can leave the Metaverse whenever you want to restore your stats, you can only do so from a checkpoint, which sometimes may be a bit further away.
Oracle Recovery allows you to recover HP and SP after each fight, helping you not use your precious items and SP, saving them for in-battle use instead. While this recovery may not be a ton, it will quickly add up when dealing with easier battles that can be knocked out quickly.
4Spiritual Arts
As elemental abilities are a necessity to focus on to target weaknesses and finish a fight much more easily, it’s best to make sure all those elemental abilities are doing enough damage. While not every party member is magically inclined, this skill will benefit everyone equally.
With many levels of this skill to invest in, it will make your magic-heavy users even more powerful and help the physical-focused members do much more damage when targeting a weakness. This skill will also greatly benefit Joker, as he will have access to all elemental types through his different personas and will often be able to target a weakness.
3Harisen Helper
Status effects in any game are a pain to deal with, as your character is not performing at their best. While some items and abilities can recover characters from this effect, Harisen Recovery makes it much easier.
This ability will have a chance of triggering on its own and will be completely free. Not only will your character jump back to max efficiency, but you won’t have to spend your precious SP to make it happen.
2Treasure Hunter
Treasure Demons are difficult battles, not because they hit hard or have a genius AI, but because they only take specific damage and need to be defeated in a certain time limit. While these battles can be frustrating to figure out, the rewards make them an always worthwhile target.
While Treasure Demons are so helpful, they are pretty rare. Treasure Hunter helps make them spawn more often, and investing in this skill early can cause a lasting impact on the game, allowing your party to level up much more quickly.
1Bondmaker
While some bond skills are better than others, all of them benefit your party in some way or another. Bond skills are generously given through story moments, but with so many skills to get, you’ll always be wanting more.
Bondmaker and its subsequent upgrades will all belocked behind specific story moments, limiting its upgrades. This skill should be your top priority every chance you get, as it will make level-ups and story moments give you more points to spend on the other skills available through the bond menu.
