What do I do with Personas?

[Bogart]

No spoilers please. I'm nearly 20 hours in and loving the game but have almost no idea what to do with my personas. I fused my Arsene once and lost him so after buying him back I pretty much only use him. I've fused a few times and seem to have gotten EXP but it seems like my best bet is to actually wait until my confidant ranks are much higher as this appears to boost fusion bonuses.

I think they've done an excellent job with the game but the whole Persona thing seems really confusing.

[Faiyez]

First thing you need to do is discard Arsene. Persona are meant to be fused into stronger Persona, not so much leveled up.

Use the "fuse by result" menu. Try to maintain a roster that gives you access to a variety of elemental spells.

Any time you want to spend time with a confidant, make sure to carry a Persona matching that confidant's arcana for bonus points.

Work on leveling the strength confidant. If you are keeping all of this in mind, you will be pretty busy in the velvet room from the get go.

Using an external fusion guide is something that anyone playing this game should seriously consider. It's going to take so much guesswork out of finding the Persona that you want.

[Arifufu]

do some research and fuse your persona, do negotiation with shadow that has same or lower level than joker, after u open all persona in registry list u can make a more powerful arsene, there are many skill trait out there can be added to arsene, u don't need to wait exp bonus, u can literally level up any persona using gallows once per fusion alarm triggered, keep doing it until u reach your desired persona setup, yes this game force player to do grinding, but the difference p5r player will more likely spend more time in velvet room, unlike past persona game grinding should be done inside dungeon

[Andre]

You can switch personas in fights(no delay) so you can use the skills of all of them. Fusing is important because base personas only have a few skills. Try to create the personas the twins demand to get more fusion options.

[Leigh]

Fusion calculator to give you an idea what is out there, other sections of the site are useful too.

https://aqiu384.github.io/megaten-fusion-tool/p5r/personas

Originally posted by Faiyez:

First thing you need to do is discard Arsene. Persona are meant to be fused into stronger Persona, not so much leveled up.

Feel free to ignore this should you want to, it is perfectly feasible to level up your starter Persona. I did this with Izanagi in P4G with no problems, he became my opener buffer/debuffer. Skill cards can be acquired and used at will, allowing you to shape any Persona how you want.

Yes, Personas have innate strengths, weaknesses and abilities, but there are ways to keep your fave looking ones on the team for longer.

[Douchebag Extraordinaire]

Fill your compendium by fusing as much as you can. The compendium takes a stat screenshot of your personas (and whenever you log any changes), so you can just recall them back with money after using them anyway. Not only that but later in the game, it comes in handy with converting them into items, a lot which are exclusive.

While it is easier to basically float your list with your level through fusions and captures, you can also get level and stat upgrades using various methods for your favorite ones.

[Bogart]

Thank you very much guys. I will focus more on doing fusions to create new personas and on using different ones.