So.... Haru or Makoto?

[No' Name]

So, I'm finally dedicated to trying to beat this game, and I've heard lots of people say Makoto is pretty much the "all-star" of the game given her strength, and combo's, and not being reliant on SP skills....

However, I'm finding the same to be very true for Haru as well. Not only does Haru require less moves to pull off insane amounts of damage, while using her combo's, much like Makoto, she doesn't seem to be interrupted by anything, and has a far LARGER area of effect (AoE) when using her normal combo's.

Not only does Haru seem to be the most powerful character in the game, her Psio move from her combo's when upgraded, knocks enemies into the air, and "juggles" them, all in the mean while, Makoto's fist move can miss quite a bit if your positioning is off even in the slightest.

So I guess my question is, which character is stronger, Makoto, or Haru? I honestly didn't care for either of them during Persona 5, but this game seems to have those two characters in particular super over powered, and there's little to no reason you would not have BOTH of them in your party at the same time.

My opinion of course.

[AnemoneMeer]

Makoto is an all-rounder character. She's generally considered towards the middle of viability because she's a character with no strengths and no weaknesses. Makoto has decent speed, decent stat spread, a wide ranging but overall unimpressive ability list, acceptable AoE and acceptable single target performance.

Haru is an AoE machine who excels at the obliteration of lesser enemies. Her lack of effective shield breaking in many fights from a lack of attack speed and of critical chance, combined with inferior ability to exploit weaknesses compared to other options means she relies more on raw output. She certainly has said output, being the second most lethal gunner in the game and third most lethal melee attacker in the game, but her slow attacks and inferior shield breaking hampers her.

The strongest characters in P5S are generally considered to be Ann and Wolf. Ann is the only caster with inherent SP regeneration, as well as being an effective technical primer without SP. Having SP regen on a healer is incredibly effective as you can imagine. Ann is also P5S's undisputed Queen of Gun, as her machinegun's DPS is astronomical if her strength is increased via incense and buffs. She can, on normal, deplete half or more of a bosses HP with a combination of stat buffs, incense use, and the gun upgrades.

Wolf, acquired later, is a very self-reliant character who has access to MEGIDOLAON as a dodge counter, irrationally high durability, self heal on normals, Almighty Normals, and the best normal attack in the game bar none in his ability to launch a piercing, launching shockwave the length of any room in the game. He largely suffers from being too complicated for the AI to effectively play and needing Magic Incense stacking to bring out his true strength.

[No' Name]

Originally posted by AnemoneMeer:

Makoto is an all-rounder character. She's generally considered towards the middle of viability because she's a character with no strengths and no weaknesses. Makoto has decent speed, decent stat spread, a wide ranging but overall unimpressive ability list, acceptable AoE and acceptable single target performance.

Haru is an AoE machine who excels at the obliteration of lesser enemies. Her lack of effective shield breaking in many fights from a lack of attack speed and of critical chance, combined with inferior ability to exploit weaknesses compared to other options means she relies more on raw output. She certainly has said output, being the second most lethal gunner in the game and third most lethal melee attacker in the game, but her slow attacks and inferior shield breaking hampers her.

The strongest characters in P5S are generally considered to be Ann and Wolf. Ann is the only caster with inherent SP regeneration, as well as being an effective technical primer without SP. Having SP regen on a healer is incredibly effective as you can imagine. Ann is also P5S's undisputed Queen of Gun, as her machinegun's DPS is astronomical if her strength is increased via incense and buffs. She can, on normal, deplete half or more of a bosses HP with a combination of stat buffs, incense use, and the gun upgrades.

Wolf, acquired later, is a very self-reliant character who has access to MEGIDOLAON as a dodge counter, irrationally high durability, self heal on normals, Almighty Normals, and the best normal attack in the game bar none in his ability to launch a piercing, launching shockwave the length of any room in the game. He largely suffers from being too complicated for the AI to effectively play and needing Magic Incense stacking to bring out his true strength.

Damn that's very detailed lol.

I guess I never looked at Anne, and Wolf that way before. I always figured wolf was strong due to his buff that drains his HP, maybe I just didn't have him up to par as the characters I normally use, because I personally value him as almost useless.

I do periodically use Anne though, but she doesn't seem as strong as Makoto, or Haru, which you mentioned their raw strength alone is insane, in which I would agree.

The main reason I'd use Makoto, and Haru, is simple because they don't seem to be interrupted by attacks, where as every other character can be, thus, making it a huge bother, because enemies will ALWAYS target whoever you're playing as, so not being able to get interrupted is a huge plus.

It also feels like their raw damage alone is more than enough to mitigate at least some of the enemies shields.

I mean later on Haru's Psio move when used in a normal combo juggle's enemies, while doing decent damage, meaning, nothing is ever going to land a single attack, or even get the chance, not to mention I think she is single handed, the strongest "Brute force" character in the game.

It's my opinion of course, usually if I'm trying to break down someone's weakness, Joker pretty much can Supplement, or fit in any where, thus, there's really no point to having anyone else as a means for weakness, unless you don't have SP items on hand, which I seem to always have, as I go from dungeon to stores, to Sophie, every time I leave a dungeon.

Again personal opinion I suppose, it's just insanely hard to find a more "Brute Forceful" use other than Makoto, and Haru.

[AnemoneMeer]

Ann's strength isn't so much in her raw impact on an individual action so much as how well she can play the game as a whole. Pretty much every facet of her kit takes advantage of the game's mechanics to an abusive extent.

Technicals are one of the most efficient ways to down enemies. Ann is the undisputed master of technical priming, because she not only has really high luck for status application, but her normals apply burning and her final master art severely increases the odds of doing so. This lets her and another party member (Morgana, Makoto, Joker) easily score a constant string of Technical hits.

Ann's ability to gain SP from status ailments further interacts with this, and her attack range is one of the widest in the game. Swipe into a mob, gain double digit SP. Outside of just healing, it should be remembered that casting spells flinches enemies. Ann can easily recoup enough SP back from throwing Agi into a mob to make it go SP positive, even in the late game, giving her the most efficient staggering in the game.

Ann's gun is NOT remotely balanced. The devs gave it a very high damage/shot to make up for Ann's low strength.... but you can easily fix her strength just by feeding her strength incense and stat buffs. Even on Merciless, it deals incredible damage to bosses and she can 100-0 anything weak to gun damage without issue. Additionally, because each bullet can crit individually, it's not rare to get a full All Out Attack off of simply holding the trigger down.

Ann's extremely high magic exploits the fact that Dodge Counters scale off of Magic. Ann simply has one of the best dodge counters before Merciless, where a fully built Wolf overtakes her.

Other characters such as Wolf and Haru can easily deal more raw damage than Ann, but you don't take her for raw damage. You take her because Ann can control the flow of engagements better than any other character.

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Wolf's a bit more of an advanced character, but an absolute monster once you understand his kit. His life drain is stronger at lower HP, but the game doesn't consider health you can regenerate in this equation. You use Phys skills to deplete his HP part way, then use his sword and auto-regen to rapidly refill it so you can loop more phys skills. His high endurance and later his severe resistance to oncoming damage and self-resurrect ensure he's safe while he does this. Endgame Wolf does not die, even on merciless it's nigh impossible for him to die.

Wolf's first heavy attack, the charged up sword beam, is meant to be used as a ranged tool. You can fire it off from the other side of the arena, giving him a devastating ranged option that he can gapclose off of. His second one is meant for downed phases, and his third is melee mob slaughterhouse. His guns are used to poke if you can't set up good melee regen or need health now.

Rage should be used on downed enemies or cleanup. Phys skill looping is his best strength and what you want to lean into, with rage being a secondary tool for when you don't wanna do that.

Finally, stuff him full of magic incense and dodge counter everything. Megidolaon is a tier above everyone else's dodge counters, and it shows.

Also he has both Debilitate and Heat Riser, making him a one-man buff brigade.

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Haru is a mobbing machine but struggles heavily with enemies who don't stagger, such as bosses or minibosses. She doesn't have the durability of Wolf or Ryuji, and lacks the raw evasiveness and counters of Yusuke. She also can't loop as effectively as Wolf and lacks Ryuji's raw phys output. She's superior in mobbing to all of them but Wolf, and completely crushes Wolf in effectiveness of her guns.