I actually keep forgetting to use Yusuke, to be honest. I mean yeah, my party’s just 6 right now, but normally it winds up being Yusuke and Ryuji that sits out. It kind of makes sense with Ryuji since he plays like Kanji (who I didn’t really use in P4), but the Yusuke thing doesn’t make that much sense since he sort of seems to play like Chie skill-wise (so far), who I like ALWAYS used except for one boss exception.
I like having Yusuke in the main line up because he has more damaging physical attacks than Ryuji and has more AoEs. Yusuke can wipe a group of enemies or deal heavy damage after a baton pass. He has moves that power up even more during baton pass. He has more SP than Ryuji in the event I need to use magic with him.
I used to love having Yusuke but I kept forgetting to baton pass with him so his damage wasn’t much more than Ryuji.
For focusing down strong enemies I’ll lower their defense with Joker, buff the damage with Ryuji, then hammer away at them with Yusuke and Ryuji. They’re the bash brothers.
I dropped Ryuji from my main party when I go Makoto. She can do good damage while keeping the party alive. I give the party defense buffs and provide heals when needed. There isn’t many enemies in the game resistant to nuclear damage so you can’t go wrong with it.
I think I might of gotten locked out of politician already. He hasn’t been accessible for a couple of days now. I recently got to max Mishima and get access to the gamer king link. Just one rank away from getting max with Makoto and the twins.
Shes too valuable as a defender to spend so much SP on attacking. I have her buff defenses, heal anyone, then if I’ve gone a round without taking too much damage she’ll attack.
I’m mostly talking about boss fights here. In standard battles of course I’m using everyone just because of the SP drain and cycling weaknesses.
I wanted to waifu Takemi the moment I met her. How her relationship develops I couldn’t see it as being a convincing romance. It’s one of those times I wish the MC wasn’t a high school student.
Makoto and Protag play healer (Morgana for out of battle medic).
Yusuke and Protag are heavy-hitters
Makoto is AOE physical and nuke
Haru is Psychic, plus helps clear out those groups of mobs who are weak to guns.
Yusuke, Makoto, Ryuji, with Morgana as a honorable mention.
Yusuke is the best physical damage dealer, both single-target and for AoE, and ice is a common weakness. He also has a shitload of bullets for ranged weakness enemies. I kinda want to punch his pretentious pretty boy art student face, but he’s probably the best character outside of Joker, so I’m sorta stuck with him.
Makoto is bae and (more importantly) is excellent at physical AoE. Nuclear is also a weakness that pops up quite often.
Ryuji punches things. He’s not Yusuke but he still does the job at punching things without spending too much SP.
Morgana is the best healer. This doesn’t make him useful in individual fights per se, but he’s great in between fights, and I always include him for bossfights as SP efficiency is nowhere near as important as not dying when it comes to bosses.
tldr: anyone who doesn’t use SP make up most of my parties, except for bossfights where I counterpick the boss and almost always include Morgana.
Most other characters actually have to spend SP to do damage, which is pretty bad imo.
Morgana has become a double edged sword recently. going from mediarama to mediarhan has made him incredibly costly to use as a healer.
im so glad i completed Shinya’s social link. you basically get a chance to destroy half of an enemies life before the battle even starts now. kid you did me real good.
my next playthrough im going to get into the habit of farming and sacrificing personas to power others up. its stupid i always end up filling up my roster then only really using like 5 because the rest are under leveled, because i never use them. This super easy mechanic would fix that issue completely.
i find it weird im thinking of my next playthrough so much. that’s not something i do often especially not for JRPGs, but i see how inefficient im playing and i feel like i can do much better even without cheesing it.