Persona 5 Best Personas Early Game - Persona 5 Beginners Guide

This beginner's guide of the best early personas might be incomplete. It's based on my own experience and I might have missed something or maybe said something wrong. If that's the case, feel free to add your opinion in the comments below.

TL; DW
You can use pretty much whatever you want without following these tips. I play just by randomly forging whatever I don’t already have to complete my collection. Just make sure you have a good variety of elements and skills.

Get some debuffs for when you face bosses. (ATK & AGI debuffs). It’s not necessary but will make your life easier against bosses. For example, the earliest ATK debuff you can get is at level 4 from Bicorn.

Obariyon (level 8) has Snap, Sukunda and learns Lucky Punch at level 9. Snap is a Gun dmg skill and Sukunda is AGI debuff. Lucky Punch is very very useful as it has high critical rate. You can use it to bring down enemies for which you don’t have strong element against or they don’t have weaknesses. It also works against enemies that resist physical attacks, but it will not work against enemies that block/repel physical attacks (unless they have statuses like freeze)

Andras (level 10) learns Apt pupil at level 13, a passive which increases critical rate. Along with lucky punch, you will do criticals very often

Makami (level 15) has Frei (nuclear dmg). I think it’s the first persona to have it and you won’t find many others, so take it in case you find someone weak to Nuclear

Ippon-Datara (level 13) is strong to Fire, Blessing and Curse and repels Wind while only weak to Ice. Also he learns Rampage at 15 which is a nice AoE physical attack for early phases

MATADOR (level 19) BEST EARLY GAME PERSONA. Learns Swift Strike at level 20 (3-4 light phys damage to all enemies). The damage output is huge and to put it into perspective, Ryuuji (Captain Kid), which is your main physical damage dealer at the beginning, learns Swift Strike at level 32, which is basically 2 palaces later. Just get this persona.

Suzaku (level 19) learns Speed Master at level 23, a passive that applies AGI bonus (Accuracy/Evasion) at the beginning of the battle. Combine it with Matador’s Swift Strike to miss less.

Shiki-Ouji (level 21) BLOCKS physical/gun damage and is the perfect early recipient for Swift Strike + Speed Master. You need to fuse Suzaku with Jack-o-Lantern to make Orobas and then fuse Orobas with Matador. Shiki-Ouji’s only weakness is Nuclear and there aren’t many nuclear enemies while there are lots of physical enemies.

Phoenix (level 22, Feng Huang in the calculator) learns Recarm at level 25 (Revive ally). Very useful in case you don’t want to farm money for revive items.

Anzu (level 25) small mention because of Masukukaja (AGI buff to whole party)

Principality (level 29) learns Mediarama at level 31 (moderate heal to party), Morgana’s Zorro learns it at 34

Setanta (level 28) learns Charge at level 34. Charge increases your damage of your next physical attack by 2.5x. It will still be a core skill at the end of the game.

Neko Shogun (level 30) learns Invigorate 1 at level 31. 3 SP regen each turn

[TheMaleLilligant]

Pyro Jack is now called by his japanese name. (Jack-O-Lantern) Of all the things P5 does, THIS is the thing that blows my mind.

[SuperApcalypse]

The Matador tip is amazing. Will have to grab that as I've been lacking a Death Persona.

[Erydanus]

Ame no Uzume at level 29 learns Divine Grace at level 32. That's a 50% boost for healing spells and lets Diarama and Mediarama deliver a lot more potence. Though you won't need it on personas that have diarahan, it's great early and mid game. Be sure to fuse it down to a low level healing persona like Pixie for NG+.

[AmanzeStudios]

Thank you for your contribution to the Person community. I am currently ~24 hours, dungeon 2, into the game and found this video very useful. Also, accents add character. I could perfectly understand you.

[jpphilosopher]

I'm nearly at the end of the game and I still use Shiki-Ouji because it's that good. I recommend this move set: Mapsi, Miracle punch, Swift Strike, Triple Down, Speed Master, Apt Pupil, Adverse Resolve, and Charge.

[liamvogel]

Thank you so much for making this! I was totally freaking out with the overwhelming amount of different skills/personas.

[robertmccormack]

Took matador from the start of the game to the end. 100% my favourite persona and I highly recommend.

[EdenMirages]

I wish Lucky Punch was not physical attack and rather almighty

[ryanblume]

Bicorn learns apt pupil at 8. Fuse him to make obyrion and then andres for less grinding

[SavageDroppinDaBeats]

I had great success with Leanan Sidhe, a level 19 persona that gets Marin Karin and Psio. I also had it inherit Brainwash Boost from a Succubus and laugh as the midbosses murder each other and get bonus technical damage

[SephiZack]

I hope you enjoyed the video. Tell me if you think I should add anything ;D

If you want me to make other videos and maybe have some requests, feel free to ask.

[rumi]

I had matador, It is the best persona in the beginning of the game

[khalidalali]

FINALLY SOMEONE WHO KNOWS WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT. IVE BEEN LOOKING FOR SOMEONE LIKE YOU FOR A LONG TIME!!!!

[MegaSinch]

Love the video been looking for good early personas but wasn't sure which ones were good, and i didn't keep any of the debuffing skills only buffs to party. I guess ill have to buy early personas and fuse to get them to where i'm at in the game.

[t.n.]

I swear, all these pokemon fusions give me brain cancer. There are hundreds of combinations, and everytime u do fusion a new list of results comes up of new combinations. Not to mention u gotta figure out wat u wanna carry over that u don't already have or that u might learn later on. I jus went to dungeons and collect them all to register in book and buy them when I need. Saves me the headache.

[GoroGoroGoroAwome]

Just to mention there is also nekomata at level 17 which is better than makami and it just takes two extra levels he knows mafrei and stuff like Mazio or maragi or even mabufu is available just wanted to mention

[Wyvernil]

Shiisaa is a better source for the Rampage skill than Ippon-Datara, IMO. Ippon is a Hermit arcana persona, and you don't have access to the Hermit confidant until the latter half of the game, so to get Rampage you'd need to manually level it up. And by the time that happens, you'll probably have access to Shiisaa, which you'll need to fuse for the Strength confidant anyway, and whose Chariot arcana you'll be more likely to have ranks of since Ryuji's link is available right from the start.

[Skechy]

First persona game. I did not expect to be collecting and fusing personas so I needed to know what should I look out for.

[wernerhinckellrin]

Nice of you mentioning Neko Shogun, he's great because of many reasons:
-Invigorate (god i love myself some SP)
-Resistance to physical + good physical attacks (double fangs)
-Advanced fusion : it means you have a lot of slots available to pass skills on, which can turn this cat into a war machine for most of the early to mid dungeons (using it even at dungeon 5 isn't too far fetched).
It's definitely my preferred early to mid persona. The best in transition imo
And Matador is just flat out broken. Its only opponent in early game is basically Kaguya, and then again it's DLC

[populatethemoon]

I wish you uploaded more man, your guides are fantastic.