Persona 3 Reload reintroduces players to the original Persona 3 cast. With so many characters to choose from—there’s 10 from the original game, to start—it’s a tricky task to make a perfect party of four ready to traverse the floors of Tartarus. That said, the roster does have a few excellent combinations that make-up the best party.
The best party in Persona 3 Reload
The best party lineup in Persona 3 Reload will vary based on your playstyle and how you prefer to approach battles. Every character in the game brings something different to the table, with some focusing on physical attacks, others on magical attacks, and the rest having powerful supporting capabilities.
A good way to determine a strong lineup is to have a little bit of everything. That said, if you prefer a specialized approach, there are different party compositions to fulfill those needs. For the sake of clarity, we have created a few party lineups you can use depending on the situation you encounter. If you prefer playing at higher difficulty levels (Hard/Merciless), having a specialized lineup becomes even more important.
These compositions should help you get through most areas in Tartarus:
- Balanced party: A healthy mix of offense and defense.
- Physical attack party: An offense-oriented lineup focused on physical damage.
- Magical attack party: An offense-oriented lineup focused on magical damage.
- Damage sustain party: A defense-oriented lineup focused on recovery.
But before we talk about the best team compositions, one important member of SEES has to be recognized.
Special Mention: Fuuka Yamagishi
While Fuuka isn’t an active participant in battles, her backline support enables every one of the following compositions. Fuuka constantly buffs the team with what they need like attack, defense, accuracy, and evasion, while her abilities unlock enemy weaknesses and scan floors. Her Personas Lucia and Juno bring even more to the battlefield.
Fuuka’s Theurgy skill Oracle lets her bestow a random positive effect on all allies when used while Juno grants an enhanced positive effect. Just make sure to have her analyze an enemy to get her started. As Fuuka levels up, she gets more skills that help you break down the enemies’ strengths and weaknesses even faster.
Next, pick a party lineup that suits your playstyle, and let’s get started.
Balanced party
The balanced party consists of characters that output a fair amount of damage while having enough defensive buffs. For your first Persona 3 Reload run, this is the party you should play as it can ease you through most battles.
- Protagonist: Physical damage, Almighty damage, Utility
- Yukari: Pierce damage, Wind damage, Healing, Debuffs
- Junpei: Slash damage, Fire damage
- Akihiko: Strike damage, Electric damage, Buffs
Since the Protagonist is flexible in terms of what Personas he can use, picking Physical damage on the offensive front with Almighty damage as a backup is best. With multiple Personas available to the Protagonist, it would be useful to have some with Utility skills to benefit your party.
Yukari primarily plays as the support and secondary damage dealer. Her high magic stat will also ensure a good output of Wind damage while her healing and resurrection skills will keep your party alive through long battles.
Junpei is one of the reworked game’s hardest hitters by a long distance, and his arsenal of Slash damage skills can make short work of enemies. For enemies immune to Slash, Junpei’s Fire skills are a great substitute while his Theurgy skills increase his damage output even further, even healing him to full health.
Akihiko rounds up this composition with physical and magical damage. His buffs to attack, defense, and critical strike chance fit in perfectly with all damage types. Akihiko’s Theurgy skills also ignore resistances and have a chance to shock enemies.
Physical attack party
This party composition is specialized towards powerful physical damage. Since this lineup is entirely physical damage-based, we include party members that output Slash, Strike, and Pierce to cover every base and hit all physical weaknesses.
- Protagonist: Almighty damage, Utility, Healing, Debuffs
- Akihiko: Strike damage, Electric damage, Buffs
- Aigis: Pierce damage, Slash damage, Utility
- Koromaru: Slash damage, Dark damage, Buffs
With the party’s focus on heavy physical damage, the Protagonist takes a backseat and focuses on healing and keeping his teammates alive. If the enemy is immune to physical damage, having Almighty damage skills on hand will be extremely helpful in a pinch.
Akihiko’s role in this lineup is for Strike skills and his physical buffs, not to mention, every time he uses a buff skill, his Theurgy gauge starts to fill up, giving him access to powerful skills.
Aigis is the assault vehicle. Her skill set comprises both Pierce damage and Slash damage, allowing her to exploit different physical weaknesses. Orgia Mode gives her a burst of power in exchange for losing control of Aigis for a few turns, so trade wisely.
Koromaru is the perfect little good boy to round out this Persona 3 Reload physical damage lineup with his powerful Slash skills. For physical immune enemies, he brings the power of Darkness and instant-kill skills. His Theurgy skill buffs the entire party with a massive boost to their physical damage on the next attack.
Magical attack party
Similar to the previous composition, this party lineup is more offense-oriented but relies on magical damage instead. Because magic is so varied in terms of elements, our lineup will try to gain maximum coverage over different elemental types.
- Protagonist: Almighty damage, Fire damage, Light damage, Dark damage
- Yukari: Wind damage, Pierce damage, Buffs, Healing
- Mitsuru: Ice damage, Slash damage, Status ailments
- Akihiko: Electric damage, Strike damage, Buffs, Debuffs
In this lineup, the Protagonist goes entirely on the offensive, bringing out the strongest elemental skills his Personas can offer. Blend in a healthy mix of Light and Dark damage for the potential of instant kills, Almighty damage to defeat immunes, and Fire damage for complete elemental coverage.
With the Protagonist’s massive damage, Yukari takes a backseat. Her Wind damage is great for elemental coverage while her Theurgy skill buffs the entire party with a huge damage boost to the next magical attack used by all teammates.
Mitsuru’s focus lies entirely on her powerful Ice spells that can freeze enemies, allowing your physical damage to land critical hits. Her Theurgy skills allow her to ignore resistances entirely and add Almighty damage to the mix, making for a powerful magic damage dealer.
Finally, Akihiko’s role in this lineup is to provide buffs to your party and debuff the enemies, ensuring that your party hits fast and hits hard. His Electric damage is certainly nothing to scoff at, especially with his powerful Theurgy skill.
Damage sustain party
This lineup focuses more on surviving long drawn-out engagements, especially boss battles, by ensuring your party remains healthy. This means having a mix of healing, cures, purging debuffs, and a few resurrection skills.
- Protagonist: Almighty damage, Light damage, Dark damage, Healing, Buffs, Utility
- Yukari: Wind damage, Pierce damage, Healing, Cures
- Aigis: Physical damage, Healing
- Ken: Light damage, Healing, Cures
The Protagonist, like the others in this lineup, focuses on healing skills and buffing his team. In terms of damage, you can’t go wrong with Almighty damage to bypass all resistances. Keep Light and Dark damage in your back pocket for some clutch instant kill skills as well.
Yukari is your primary healer. On top of healing, she also gains access to cures to dispel all status ailments as well as early resurrection skills. For offense, her Wind damage is quite high thanks to her impressive Magic stat gain.
Aigis is the damage dealer of this lineup, bringing Pierce and Slash damage to your party. Orgia Mode allows her to go on autopilot while Maximum Firepower is great for focus firing down a troublesome enemy. Aigis has her own healing skills owing to how much health her physical skills cost.
Ken is the source of Light damage and is a great defensive character. His Divine Retribution Theurgy skill allows him to ignore Light resistances and deal severe damage. Ken also has the best revival skill in Divine Intervention, allowing him to revive and fully heal all party members, while placing a buff on them that reflects the next attack they receive.
