The Persona franchise has remained a pillar in the RPG genre since 1996. Otherwise known as Shin Megami Tensei: Persona, developer Atlus has released a total of 30 Persona games in the near three decades of its existence. The latest entry, Persona 5 Strikers, is a sequel-spinoff hybrid of Persona 5.
The story in Strikers takes place six months after the events of Persona 5, and surprisingly answers a lot of the lingering questions fans had after the end of P5, but Strikers removes some mechanics from the main title, including Confidants.
Updated September 26, 2021 by Jacob Buchalter: Persona 5 Strikers has been out for quite some time now, but because the game is surprisingly long, it might’ve taken a lot of you up until this point to work your way through it and other games like it. And, after coming out on the other side of this game, we’re sure you all have Bond Skills you wished you maxed earlier. So, to help anyone new coming into Strikers, here are the Bond Skills we found to be the best investments.
14 Everything That Happened Between Persona 5 And Strikers
Establishing Confidants and improving upon those relationships was one of the most important features in Persona 5. And, frankly, slowly building “bonds” or relationships with characters is a foundation of the whole Persona franchise. Each character that was either in the Phantom Thieves or assisted them, like Iwai and Takemi, provided some sort of benefit for the justice-crusading teens in conjunction with the narrative purpose they served.
Bonds still exist in Persona 5 Strikers, but its not quite as in-depth as the Confidant system, rather, Strikers has “Bond Skills”. These skills act in a similar way to the Confidant benefits from the base game and affect various areas in Strikers. While it’s easy to finish Strikers with most of the Bond skills unlocked, there are a select few that should be high on the priority list, especially in the early game.
13 Packrat And Highwayman
Last up, or should we say first up, are the Packrat and Highwayman Bond Skills. These Skills, to put it simply, are mostly just quality-of-life investments. Later on in the game, you’ll encounter an NPC by the name of Kuon Ichinose that starts giving the Phatom Theives quests for Junk Parts, and investing in the Packrat Skill earlier makes it so you’ll be backtracking a lot less.
In contrast, the Highwayman Bond Skill also goes a long way over the course of the game toward saving you money. And, the sooner you unlock it, the more usage you get out of it, which actually applies to a few different entries on this list.
12 HP/SP Boost
Although Strikers introduces a completely revamped combat system, managing the health and skill points of the Phantom Thieves remains a major focus when it comes to success in battle. As you would expect, HP and SP both gradually increase as Joker and the Thieves level up, but investing in the HP and especially the SP Boost Bond Skills offers long-term benefits.
Unlike the SP drought problem they fixed in Royal, Strikers has players utilizing every last point of SP to the best of their ability, so making that efficiency game just the slightest bit easier should improve your experience overall.
11 Spiritual Arts And Martial Arts
Personas possess elemental abilities, or in other words, magic. Sure, Ann can continue whipping an evil snowman for an hour, or she can call upon Carmen to blast it with an Agilao and burn down everything in her path. The Spiritual Arts Bond Skill increases damage dealt by Persona magic attacks, which is crucially important in a game all about using the elemental weakness of each Persona against them.
And, similarly, Martial Arts is also a fantastic Bond Skill to get as well, as it increases the physical damage of Personas, which is extra useful for Makoto, Ryuji, and even Yusuke. Neither of these Bond Skills will completely “change” the way you approach combat in Persona, but they should both provide a nice little bump to your overall damage output and whichever one you upgrade first will likely influence the specific Skill Cards you’ll be on the lookout for.
10 Harisen Helper
Most Shadows attack directly in the Persona games. But, the further along you go, the more status-inflicting Shadows start to pop up that burden your team with all sorts of effects like confusion, paralyze, and so on.
Harisen Recovery is an ability from the mainline games in which all party members have a chance to automatically cure the afflicted person’s ailment as soon as it pops up, and it returns in Strikers as well. But, by default, it’s a pretty small chance that it’ll trigger at all. With Harisen Helper, this chance increases by quite a bit. It may not sound all “that” helpful, but, due to the overall scarcity of items, Harisen Helper actually does come in handy.
9 Ambusher
Next up is Ambusher, a fantastic Bond Skill that might not seem all “that” great from its description alone, but the HP regained is still well-worth the Persona Point investment. The Economy of P5: Strikers is honestly a lot less forgiving the P5 or P5: Royal, so saving money on healing items wherever you can makes a pretty big impact.
Plus, Ambushing enemies is almost a mandatory feature in Strikers, as you’ll get very annoyed with the combat otherwise, so it’s a Bond Skill that will get triggered constantly.
8 Pass Appeal
A new mechanic added in Strikers, Showtime, is a powerful, special move that each of the Phantom Thieves can perform. Basically, think of it as a “super” from any fighting game. The Phantom Thieves execute this attack individually alongside their respective Personas after their “super” gauge is filled.
The Bond Skill Pass Appeal helps fill the Showtime gauge up faster when switching between party members. The more you can use Showtime, the quicker you’ll clear mobs, so grabbing Pass Appeal just seems like the obvious choice.
7 Proper Showman
All that said, what’s even the point in filling up the Showtime gauge faster if the damage of it isn’t astronomical compared to regular attacks? Proper Showman is here to remedy that conundrum. This Bond skill increases the overall damage dealt by the Showtime abilities.
The Showtime technique is the strongest attack (other than All-Out) for the Phantom Thieves, so improving upon its raw power is crucial to survive the Metaverse, especially in the later dungeons.
6 Oracle Recovery
For some odd reason, Atlus felt it was a good idea to significantly reduce the amount of healing and SP-regain items given to the Phantom Thieves overall in Strikers.
Thankfully, Futaba (a constantly polarizing romantic choice in P5) takes matters into her own hands with the Bond Skill Oracle Recovery. With this skill, Futaba restores some HP and SP to the party after a battle. Although Strikers allows you to come and go in Jails to fully restore HP and SP, Futaba’s skill tries to reduce the number of return trips so the Phantom Thieves can explore the Metaverse a bit longer. It’s a shame they didn’t bring back one of the fan-favorite characters Tae Takemi to contribute to the healing skills, but this Bond Skill does a decent enough job.
5 Joker’s Wild
An interesting change in Strikers compared to Persona 5 is how Joker acquires wild Personas. In the base game, Joker had to persuade the Shadow to join the Phantom Thieves on their quest for justice. With Strikers overhauling the combat system, Joker now just picks up these floating masks that are left behind to gain the fallen Shadow.
Unfortunately, a mask won’t appear after every battle, which can lead to some repetitive grinding, but Joker’s Wild does increase the chance of a mask showing up. You’ll need to get a lot of Personas throughout the course of the game, especially if you want to use Fusion to create some of the stronger Personas, so Joker’s Wild is a pretty big necessity.
4 Metaverse Medic
This Bond skill is arguably one of the best in Strikers, hands down. Metaverse Medic increases the healing effects of items. Remember how we keep talking about how sparring the healing items are in this game? So it’s obvious that a Bond Skill like this one will make things a lot easier, especially if its grabbed early.
Due to Strikers implementing real-time combat instead of the turn-based one it’s used to, it’s fairly easy to lose track of your party’s health and you might not notice someone’s in danger until it’s too late. With a lot of items only healing 10-20 HP, Metaverse Medic can be the difference between using multiple items or just a single item to save a teammate.
3 Smart Shopper
Oh, what’s that? More Bond skills that deal with items? By now, the importance of items in Strikers should be pretty obvious. While Joker can find items throughout the Metaverse, the main source for items, weapons, and accessories is through Sophia’s store.
Sophia, otherwise known as Humanity’s Companion, has her own pop-up shop in the gang’s camping van. Smart Shopper reduces the price of a few items randomly in her store.
2 Avenger
The Avenger Bond Skill should, quite frankly, be grabbed and maxed out as early as possible. Think of it like a new take on the Witch Time mechanic from the Bayonetta games, as it basically grants you an almost 100% chance to stun and deal massive damage to an enemy when you counterattack after a dodge.
And, unlike some of the other aspects of the combat like using Gun Skills or switching playable characters, dodging enemy attacks is something you really can’t avoid doing, so adding any extra benefit to this crucial feature is obviously a smart call.
1 Bondmaker
Ultimately, each Bond skill possesses its own unique effect that will surely help the Phantom Thieves on their journey across Japan. But in order to unlock and level up each skill, Joker must first level up the Bond gauge to receive the necessary currency.
Bondmaker increases how fast the Bond gauge increases, so unlocking this skill first will pay immediate dividends early in the game. With the Bond gauge filling faster, Joker can quickly amass Bond skills. While it doesn’t cause damage or might feel like it doesn’t directly help, Bondmaker is the key to unlocking the more flashy skills.
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