I honestly like Akechi's third tier Persona ability, as it's the only Almighty move in the game that does colossal damage.

I wouldn’t call Akechi’s 3rd tier persona useless. The almighty attack he gets is one of the best in the game and it does help you during the final boss.

The only useless part about it is that you can only get it right before the final boss, so that’s the only place you can use it

Rebellion Blade....USELESS? That thing tears through Azathoth if you chain Baton Passes and pair Akechi with Ann’s High Energy or the Okumura Will Seed. Sure it sucks that you don’t get it until the very end, but it’s damage is amazing. I’d honestly switch it with Makoto’s Checkmate. Checkmate sounds cool on paper, being a multi-target Debilitate, but then you realize that it’s super expensive and super situational. There’s never really a point where an all enemy Debilitate would be super helpful. A lot of the beefier enemies in Maruki’s palace are usually by themselves. If you really need to lower the defenses of Azathoth’s tentacles, Marakunda exists. Lowering their attack is meaningless because they never attack. And I never had problems with missing them. So the only thing worth Debilitating is Azathoth itself, which Akechi, Joker, or any of the party can do thanks to the Jazz Club.

OP clearly did not play p5r or was probably playing on safe

Makoto's Checkmate is not that good and makes it lower extremely than S Rank imo. It looks amazing on paper, but you factually don't need it in 95% of the fights you're gonna have during this portion of the game. Debilitate will do the exact same thing most of times but in an infinitely more efficient way.
Gaia Blessings is amazing however when Physical Ailments are an option, and she capitalizes a lot on that with her Nuke affinity aka the most spammable normal affinity in the game.

Yusuke is way too high too. Hyakka Ryouran is not bad by any means, but Royal gives too many options that do the same thing but in an infinitely better way. The only value he's really going to bring on the table is helping Joker getting an extra damage turn instead of using him for Support, which is good, but nothing vital or game changing imo.
And while the Party Evade Phys Unparalleled Eyes give is good, it's not amazing.

Yoshizawa is a bit low when she's probably the best Physical DPS of the enitre Party. She's better optimized for Phys than Yusuke having a naturally high crit rate, high luck, better physical support skill,.... She'll very often do more damage than Yusuke because she hits as hard with Sword Dance, and will deal way more crits when possible. And I obviously don't include Masquerade which is the strongest physical move for a Party member that completely outclasses the other Physical moves but you only get it the very last day.
Her Veil of Midnight/Sunrise is a bit slept on too. I don't think some people really understand how crucial it is in tough battles to not give the enemy a DOWN!+1More when they're supposed to. And its activation rate is surprisingly high too.

And Akechi is absolutely not useless lmao. If you're talking about how late you get it, then I agree. But other than that, no way in hell is Akechi useless.
His physical damage potential is high as Laevateinn is at least as strong as God's Hand, he natively learns one of the best support move in Debilitate, and Ingenious Spirit is one of the best Party Traits in the game, and the one with the highest activation rate. He maintains balance in battle by his sole presence due to his ability to help the whole team support wise.
And just like with Yoshizawa and Masquerade, I don't want to focus on Rebellion Blade much, but it's the strongest Magical move in the game.
Due to its Almighty affinity (which is naturally stronger than the other Magic affinities for obvious reasons), he'll deal more damage than Ann's Blazing Hell or Makoto's Atomic Flare while not having access to any boosting passive and while not having a Ma stat as high as Ann's. That's big if you ask me, and there's a reason why it's loli-locked. Because yeah, at the end of the day, the main problem with it is how late it comes.
The only other small objective issue with him is how his natural affinity is weak to the 1st phase of the final boss. But Evade Curse + Tantric Oath + Yoshizawa on the team easily compensates for it for example.

​

Other than that, I mostly agree with anything else.

I just fought the reaper when I was level 56 and climbed up to level 88 in one battle... So I was hoping someone chimed in on this for some help, myself. I'm torn on a few of these same skills. Can't believe no one's commented so far. I'm for now choosing High Counter over Shift Boost for Junpei because the 10% increase isn't substantial, and Junpei's got no physical resistance so the counter helps much more often than not. Still stuck on a few others, though.

has pulnipa worked well on yukari or is it a case of "most useful out of the rest"? i goofed and doubled up on amrita so I'm waiting to get wind amp but I also don't think I need diarahan on her when I have mediarahan.

How are you listing shinji in your late game party if he's dead?

I don't see point on multi target magic on top of single target magic or physical skills (or even having more than one of any attack type in general).  It's an extra slot and if your targeting weaknesses you can keep recasting single target and end game there's lots of ways to restore SP. If you do hit an entire screen all weak to same element you can always use the items if you need save sp. That starts making for a lot of extra skills to draw on when you start including your own persona pool.  The exception is almighty attacks that can't be reflected or absorbed so multi target option ever going to be blocked.

Nah there's no normal way to beat the dude at that level (without a serious plan along with some great luck) so I just dropped the difficulty down for that fight. It makes it doable (actually pretty easy) and increases the XP gained by a substantial amount.

This is a kind of a bruh moment, ngl

The Makoto placing is too high. Debilitate is better than that.

Also Kanji's isn't low enough. Same with Teddie's

Rise literally reviving you after death after blocking a fatal attack isn't mid

Yosuke's Cadenza isn't that good when better healers exists.

Quick thoughts:

• Youthful Wind should be much lower; Sukukaja is already the least useful buff type and adding a 200hp heal to it late game doesn't really make it better.
• Checkmate should be lower as it's almost strictly less useful than Debilitate.
• Chie's team-wide Heat Riser holds more value than Yusuke's. Joker can set it up in 5R for 15SP while someone else charges him the same turn.
• Rebellion Blade has a meme passive so should be lower.
• I'd put Fighting Spirit over High Energy becaues Ryuji's trait is the 80% boost to physical, so Fighting Spirit ends up synergising slightly better with Ryuji than High Energy does with Ann. Plus, there's more primary physical party members compared to magic in 5R.
• The Man's Way is completely useless and should be on the bottom, at least with Kamui Miracle you can cheese SP in Hollow Forest.

Naoto for me would be S tier easy

Most of the P5 ones are crap, honestly.

Makoto's needs to be far lower. AoE Debilitate is overkill, and not really useful in any fights after the point she gets it.

Yusuke you would think belongs in the same tier as Chie, but Joker can combine skills with Persona traits to do the same thing for a much, much lower SP cost. So his ends up being poor as well.

Futaba's is just a random chance to do what Rise does by default.

Akechi only gets his for the final boss, where he's a liability, and where you can't actually take advantage of its special effect.

Ryuji and Anne are definitely useful, but the cost is a bit restrictive, and not suited to mixed teams. You have to build your whole party around their t3, essentially.

On the other hand, Haru and Naoto's round of invincibility is extremely handy (and in Naoto's case, a game-changer for the bonus boss fight). They probably deserve to move up higher.

So with that, I'd move Makoto, Futaba, and Akechi down to C, Anne, Yusuke, and Ryuji to A, and Naoto and Haru up to S.

SEES: You guys got a third?

Imagine a test paper, where Section A is Trait, Section B is Stats and Section C is Skills. A perfect score is 100 and your question is whether you should choose between them?

For trait, it depends on the persona. For example, there is no way you will give up maxed country maker on izanagi no okami because it doubles damage dealt and no generic trait comes close to its utility.

As for mighty gaze trait, it increases all target magic by 1.2x and some players may prefer a super low cost gimmick with Allure of Wisdom trait. allure of wisdom + spell master will lower morning star from 54 sp to 6 sp.

For stats in p5r, trigger alarm and fuse any two persona to get a yellow persona. Sacrifice the yelow persona in alarm gallows to trigger an accident and the selected persona get 10 random stats. Repeat pattern unil maxed stats.

For Skills, almighty amp and magic ability, you already get 187.5% and taking up an extra skill slot with boost only increases your total damage by 6.66%. Do you want that damage increment or do you prefer to cover something else, that is the real question.

Do players really have to have the best traits, stats or the best movesets?

No, the game is really easy so you don't need to bother getting specific combos ever. Heck, this is probably also one of the easiest games where you can just ignore the fusion mecanic all together.

Presence Concealment... just so people won't bother me.

Imperial privilege... Aka Plot armor the skill.

Protection from arrows.

Mind eye. Imagine how many stubbed toes you can avoid with it

Golden rule. Gilgamesh’s level

Iyo, Himiko, and Ritsuka's poison immunity.

I got bitten by a snake a few years ago. 

With how common poisonous and venomous animals are out there. 

Imagine the medical bill I could avoid if I just had poison immunity.

Numeral of the Saint makes you nigh-invincible in the daytime.

Cleopatra has the coveted "Golden Rule: Wealth and Body", which I'm sure is just fantastic.

She also has "Imperial Privilege". Nero's broken ability to copy other people's skills, but without Nero's drawback of getting the migraines when she over-uses it.

I don't think she copies skills in the way we're talking about here. Like, if you know Kung Fu, then she does too but I don't think she can copy somebody's Golden Rule ability.

Somewhat cheating by the Tsubame Gaeshi is classified as a skill in stay night. A Skill that’s on the level of an NP is pretty damn good.

Beowulf has Madness Enhancement E-. One of only two characters in the game to have such a weak madness enhancement.

He also has "berserk" as an active ability.

My personal interpretation of that is that he's generally pretty lucid, but can temporarily ramp up his Madness Enhancement to get the accompanying physical enhancements. Which I feel like would be a really useful for some Berserker Master out there. Really lets you get the best of the Berserker class without the worst of its downsides.

I think endurance is really underrated as an secondary mastery

For example, if your move has a long windup or is pretty easily telegraphed, it can be interrupted by counter attacks with ease, but what if you can’t be interrupted

What if no matter what the enemy does they can’t stop u from landing your attack

For example, you will always execute your technique perfectly since it can never be intercepted or interrupted

It makes a strength mastery attack unstoppable, the only way to avoid it is thru dodging and no way else

With speed it doesn’t matter how many blows the enemy lands, you will always land more

But that’s just what i think

Isn't IA and Conviction considered paths instead of masteries

Personally.

Speed at top 1 "Able to blitz a more than 5 meters atleast of area which is very very very useful in faking car crashes and making insurance fraud"

Technique "From speed basically you move before the car hits you, in technique it will make the acting technique very believable that even modern high-tech cameras wouldn't see it"

Endurance "Just to be sure"

Strength "Mostly useless but could be used to intimidate crackheads and get their money"

IA is a technique not a mastery idk bout conviction tho but if we count those id say your list is probably perfect

Nah, described as a form of mastery or variant of speed mastery. It's prolly not an unique technique due to not requiring 2 masteries. And its just gained via mastery. Unique skills need to be learned or created from masteries

Better hax imo. Conviction is most times just a one time use and drains a lot of energy

ia is a technique not a mastery dumbass

On their own:

Speed is obviously the best out of the four

Technique: It's the most versatile mastery with all kind of applications

Strength has a niche that it can break through technique mastery, which has been consistently shown, and it can boost speed depends on usage as shown with James

Endurance is kinda bad ngl.

Its obviously all contextual. For example right now i pump like 12 skills into void witch. Then if i can multishot for seraph for more healing. Those two have been carrying me hard.

It becomes much better later to pump 3 heroes gear and only deploy them/ select their skills

The order in which you draft your units matters, as it determines their positions on the field. Bosses always spawn at the top. Some units prefer/not prefer being in the middle (drafted first), others prefer/not prefer being at the bottom (drafted second/third), and others prefer/not prefer being at the top (drafted fourth/fifth). Sometimes you want units either adjacent or diagonal to each other.

Sometimes you only want to draft 3/4/5 total units to get skills going faster.

Sometimes you want to prioritize certain skills to unlock ultimates. Once an ultimate is unlocked, it has a rate-up chance to appear, so you can use that to your advantage (by either drafting it immediately, or delaying so that you have fewer "dead" draws).

It's not a ton of strategy, but there is some.

Theres pool considerations.

Character "cards" always show up. So your first 2 picks will always show 3 of your 5 characters. After selecting 3 characters, your cards will always be your remaining 2 unpicked characters and a card from one of the characters you have deployed.

Each time you pick a character and deploy them, their cards get added to your pool. Each character has 3 level up cards with various bonuses, 2 non level up cards with bonuses that are sequential (meaning if you pick the non level up bonus, it adds another card that general upgrades the ability), and a +60% bonus card for that character (these always get replaced with another one once picked, they are kind of the dud card for each character). Once you pick all 3 level up cards for a character, it unlocks 4 more cards for that character, 1 upgrade card that is basically the characters ult, and 3 blue cards that are basically double bonuses of previous bonuses or cool down reduction.

As an example, for night Barron his cards are:

• 2 level up cards that give his attack +3 thrusts, and 1 level up cards that reduces his cool down (or something less good than the +3 thrusts)

• his first non level up card gives him a chance of an attack boost after a thurst. After picking this card, a card to make this attack bonus stackable becomes available.

• +60% damage dud card (picking this card does not remove it from the pool

After collecting the 3 level up cards

• ult

• +6 thrusts

• could down reduction (or something less good than the +6 thursts)

• +100% damage (does not not come back like the +60%, but generally +100% damage on an ulted ability is very good)

So every character is like this and depending on their progression, certain cards of theirs will show up on your rolls. Additionally, if you have characters with a synergy bonus (eg. Sword saint with night baron, sword master with night barkn) that synergy bonus card is a card that will start showing up when both characters are deployed. Generally speaking, these synergy bonus cards tend to be kind of mid and actually tend to gum up your rolls, which is why you'll notice a lot of top players dont play squads with the synergy bonus.

At the end of the day, the best thing to go for is ults and maybe the characters blue cards that give more attacks of the +100% damage, everything else is basically a waste of a pick. This is sort of how you should be using your rerolls. Basically you want to deploy as few characters as possible so you can keep your card pool small and have a higher chance of leveling up multiple characters to ult. 1 or 2 characters with ults online kick the crap out of 5 characters with no ults online. Also chest rewards from bosses only come from your card pool, so whike you tend to get random junk from chests, by liminging the number of characters you deploy, you up your odds of the random junk falling on a character with an ult online.

Finally, yes 3 maning. Basically you just pick 3 characters level them up to ults and this is kind of maxing out your reasonable expectations for power. You can deploy a 4th character if the rolls are spitting up only those junky +60% damage cards, but like ideally its ults or nothing. Your characters on board with no ults do insignificant damage and their added card to your card pool makes it hard to level up anyone's ults.

Are you playing FES or Portable?

There are other Personas he has fusion spells with

FES, no. Portable, yes, because skill cards are in portable and they are OP

Edit: Cadenza is still pretty damn good. I kept Orpheus in my party for a while just so I can use cadenza. You can upgrade Orpheus’ endurance, which will make him stupid tanky after a while