The Ultimate Persona 3 Reload Party Member Tier List ft.  

Thanks for having me on this one!! I know from behind the scenes, editing this was an arduous process for you LOL, so I'm glad it's finally out! Also it's cool that in this game everyone will have their own list/rankings based on how they preferred to play

The peak of persona 3 reload content has been uploaded! It can only go downhill from here!

rewatching it after seeing a lot of others persona tier lists, and I may say - this is an actually constructive and funny video.

I've been running a NG+ on Merciless since the game is very different once you understand the mechanics. Looking forward to the video.

About damn time Good work Ivan And very well edited video

Good video overall, I agree with a lot of what you said and you approached things from a relatively objective manner. However, I do think you massively underrated Aigis here for several reasons. The big one is actually something that was discovered recently by CTOBN, and that's that the hit rate of multi-hit skills actually scales with Sukukaja, making them much more likely to land more or even all hits and thus having a much higher average damage than what was previous thought, and what the graph for party member damage actually shows. I won't go deep into the formula here because I'm not the one who discovered it, but it is very important when evaluating multi-hit attacks: Multihit effective power (with Sukukaja) - Akasha Arts: ~874.25 - Shining Arrows: ~683.17 - Myriad Arrows: ~663.61 - Blade of Fury: ~483.77 - Tempest Slash: ~472.20 - Torrent Shot: ~345.55 - Arrow Rain: ~254.99 - Swift Strike: ~174.85 This has a very positive impact on Aigis and even Junpei/Shinjiro's placement, making Myriad Arrows and Blade of Fury actually stronger on average than Akihiko's Gigantic Fist, with both of these being multi-target and thus inherently more versatile. To me, this is a pretty definitive reason to put Aigis ahead of Akihiko from a pure damage standpoint when considering the game in totality, since she is better than him for both early and mid-game, essentially outclassing his non-theurgia damage output until he gets God's Hand, but by that point Aigis will have Maximum Firepower anyways which will close the gap when actually considering Theurgia given it has a much higher damage potential especially when not relying on Shift Boosters and down bonus (as they are not applicable for Nyx, for example). I also think you somewhat neglected to mention Akihiko's lack of strong multi-target skills as a drawback to his practical usage, which I feel is pretty major. His main thing he has over Aigis is that his critical hit rate is overall more consistent when facing single-targets, but crits are already pretty reliable with just the additive boosters alone and against multiple foes, AoE crit spam is just more reliable anyhow. Akihiko's crit rate is also just not really that impressive when compared to the likes of Junpei and Shinjiro, either. I don't blame you for not being aware of the jank regarding multi-hits, but do you think it'd personally change your opinion on the rankings at all, or at least convince you to move Aigis higher? I was also surprised that you didn't at all mention her acquisition of Insta-heal and Enduring Soul, which are extremely powerful supportive passives which basically make her an unkillable wall and more reliable ailment cleanser than Yukari is (lmao)

I’d put Yukari higher since she’s basically mandatory in my party in the early to mid game and preferable for late game but i definitely agree with your points against her. Also, one thing about Power Howling which isn’t great is that you need to either have MC heal or pump a ton of money into healing items. Tranquility, however, Yukari serves as healing and buffer and can facilitate Akihiko and Mitsuru/Ken/Koromaru to insane levels (even if it’s lower than physical)

0:52 and here i thought i was the only one that everytime that says "i guess" Aigis appears in my head, like the Adachi meme. I unfortunately am not even kidding and its starting to make me a little insane.

Best p3 ytber, could you maybe do a maskado build? I love his design and when he does vorpal blade it’s like he’s using his katana for that. Or if you could share some tips to build him as op as possible. Thank you

If anyone else in the comments here has any technical questions about the game, feel free to ask me btw. Also I'm impressed by the amount of effort that clearly went into the editing for this.

i will forgive you for putting Mitsuru last since the video is peak Ivan. but seriously very good stuff! ❤

I feel like Mitsuru overall is quite an improvement, my only problem is that Reload is such a phys dominant game there’s almost no reason to not use the phys dominant party members instead. Yukari and Mitsuru’s build in Reload would go nuts in the original game, especially Rakunda + Tranquillity/Concentrate + Diamond Dust which is the equivalent of Niflheim in the OG Tbh I feel like all party members have been buffed in some way or another, prob the only exceptions would be Akihiko and Aigis to some extend due to them losing their buffs/debuffs a little? Even then, they’re great for what they are and eventually you can just use Debilitate late game. I remember getting so stupidly excited when Yukari gets Amrita Drop/Shower, I had to grind for Salvation to get a party-wide ailment cure in the OG lol

So for some reason, I didn’t stick around to the video until Shinjiro’s part until today. Came back cuz a friend and I were shocked at Shinjiro having Debilitate and Firm Stance this whole time. Most players would have Shinji go away in level 30s, so sometimes I wonder why do they even bother putting skills till level 75 for a character up that will only be available for two blocks 😂 I think the Reaper video didn’t give Shinjiro the full picture at how good he is. You just modded him in to January while being in the exact same level you left it on, so it left me thinking if he could possibly out damage Junpei had he was level 99 like others?

Interesting list. Lategame my main team was Yukari/Akihiko/Aigis with Koromaru being switched in for Yukari once I could great clock get him debilitate. Never used Junpei or Ken even though I know they're good if you can get them to work. I'd love to see a tier list of like midgame party compositions and things like that. Great video!

sorry for the wall of text. the video is very well made even though i disagree on a lot! also all of this is going to be entirely in reference to the discussion, the tier last at the end is stated to be based on minmaxing so i'm not trying to argue with any placements there. i think metric is incredibly important in any discussion. its pretty clear that late game is weighted more heavily here and that characters aren't really penalized for availability or really wanting craftable/contested accessories. i'll start with the stuff i dont really disagree with yukari stinks. items do her job better than she does. her early game is terrible, gets 1 shot by guardians w/o gear. protag and junpei reliably tank 1 hit w/o gear. her availability is fantastic and a good chunk of it is uncontested, so i don't think i'd put her bottom 1 for that reason alone but she is realistically never your best choice for any encounter once she can be swapped out shinjiro is the best while hes around. his level and raw stats eclipse everyone else. even protag is kind of struggling to get charge. endure at this point in the game is nuts and lets him be super risky with being under 50% for his gauge. his abysmal availability would probably make me call him bottom 1 but hes great while hes around, given the context of what you have available at that point in the game. akihiko. the only thing i'd add is the more you limit resources (no random encounters, less craftable equipment, etc) the better tarunda gets and hes a huge bulk booster for the entire party in the early to midgame fights which is huge. this lets a level 14 yukari reliably survive during hierophant. the sonic punch thing is definitely a weakness but its actually not that bad. you only really notice the damage drop off in first half of yabbashah and chariot and justice, but after that he learns elec boost. zionga + elec boost even tho it cant crit is pretty good damage output for that point in the game assuming he has his characteristic, and it also gives him an elec boosted AOE theurgy for guardian fights. basically hes suffering for a couple guardian fights and chariot + justice and thats it. i think i'd pretty easily put him as top 1 ken. divine intervention is a literal win button in every fight after you get it. i think its safe to say w/ divine intervention ken is top 1 BUT he joins sort of late and divine intervention comes even later. the fact you can only use it for a limited amount of time would make me put ken somewhere in the middle of the pack now the stuff i sort of disagree with junpei i've come around to a good deal but i also think he has very major flaws and is currently pretty overrated. his early game while a lot better than yukaris is still pretty wack. his base stats are solid but it takes him a while to learn a good offensive skill and a lot of early game enemies use wind. he also competes with akihiko for rushing his trait, and generally i think akihikos is both better and much more useful to get before hierophant. also he really does need both equipment AND frequent use in the party to reach his maximum potential which i would argue are both huge downsides. junpei makes use of contested resources very well but they are still contested resources. aigis. i think this one is purely metric. the less resources you have the better aigis gets. taru/rakukaja become way more useful when you are a lower level and have less access to craftable items. also on the extreme end of things on minimum encounters (not including glitching past gatekeepers) her bulk is actually really important in a few places and other party members struggle to match it. i think shes overall better than junpei but not as good as someone like akihiko or mitsuru lastly the stuff i HARD disagree with mitsuru is the most underrated character in the game. i think people don't understand how good "just being a rakunda bot" is once you eliminate grinding. if you cant outfit your entire party to maximize damage then someone who just casts rakunda suddenly shoots up in usefulness. her damage output when she joins is actually decent. the damage chart that gets referenced throughout makes a couple assumptions that hurt her. those being that level is equal to enemies, party members have the same level as the protagonist and equipment is obtained at the earliest possible level. eliminating grinding as a factor mitsuru will join overleveled and you will consistently be a lower level than the enemy even with reloads obscene exp gain on guardians/bosses. her damage is fine for a little bit after she joins, but it will start to fall off like a rock since she doesnt get ice boost til well after magic has fallen off. but she still joins with rakunda. you start taking in the fact you might only be able to outfit one or two characters with their ideal gear and suddenly filling your third slot with someone who just casts rakunda doesnt seem all that bad. also her not learning an amp doesn't matter. no one learns an amp until basically the end of the game anyway. if she is getting penalized for wanting an amp accessory then 1. everyone should be penalized for wanting an amp accessory and 2. junpei should be penalized for wanting apt pupil. koromaru. if mitsuru is the most underrated koro is the most overrated. i think a lot of his strengths here are heavily upplayed so i wanna try and put some things into perspective. he has sketchy availability, missing out on the first 40% of the game is definitely something to be penalized for (same w/ ken) debilitate is a literal non factor. he is not guaranteed to learn it by the end of the game without pretty liberal usage and if he does its gonna be on the final day after jin or takaya. its not a great skill vs nyx because she cleanses debuffs between phases. can be good vs the physical phases or the final phase if you aren't prepped since they hit pretty hard but divine intervention does a better job at it. getsu-ei on paper hits hard yeah, but lets look at the full moon fights koro is around for hermit: he won't have it w/o excessive grinding strength+fortune: hes actually not guaranteed to have it here unless hes used a lot. on top of this strength resits phys that leaves takaya+jin, hanged man, chidori, jin, takaya, and nyx. chidori is scripted and jin is a joke fight so thats a whopping four bosses fought on a full moon. revolution and power howling are definitely his best aspects. his gauge is real bad though. if you arent taking random encounters that means you have to map out charging his theurgy which will give him like 1 maybe 2 uses per block of tartarus. you can bring him to fights hes not great for to try and charge an extra use but now you are basically making one encounter harder/less reliable to make another encounter easier/more reliable. vs bosses its pretty long between charges like is stated in the video. i do think koro is good. theres some guardians that having power howling prepped for is really good and revolution is always great. but i think how good he is here is vastly over exaggerated and kind of ignores the context of the game.

I only carry one attack of each type (Myriad Arrows and Akasha). I went with Dekunda as none of Aigis's other options appealed to me, and from my experience, I get hit with debuffs a lot...

If shinji had firm stance and endure on October 4 takya pistol must do 9999 damage

Thanks for the late bday present lol (birthday was yesterday.)

I like P4 and P5 more than 3 but Koro is the greatest party member in the entire modern trilogy. Such a cool kit & every moment he’s onscreen is so fun, I couldn’t stop smiling

Swap Ken and Junpei, Aigis and Akihiko, and move Yukari up a tier and it’s my list. I use Yukari over Ken, but that’s only because I don’t like the new Ken voice lol. Again, I’ve mentioned, vast majority of SMT games are hardest at the start, this is no exception, and Junpei and Akihiko are definitely the worst early on, Mitsuru being the exception. I’m sure people who played The Answer remember how Ken didn’t learn a healing move until Mediarama, which wasn’t innate, so he sucked in the answer. Glad he’s better now. Koromaru just doesn’t lose usability, and Heat Riser is obviously really good because if Makoto was in this list he would be probably a solid 9 tiers above Koromaru, so buffing and debuffing is essential. So some of my favourite compositions are: Early Game: Yukari Akihiko Aigis Mid Game: Ken Aigis Koromaru End Game Koromaru Ken Junpei End game Junpei / Aigis is honestly debatable for me, because IMO it’s just not worth investing ANYBODYS turn economy into buffing Junpei, and while Aigis’s Ma skills help, Ken and Koro are obvious main stays, so Aigis can’t buff Junpei, and Ken should obviously NEVER use heat riser on anyone but Makoto, and Koromaru is obviously a Debilitate Revolution machine. So yeah, Aigis / Junpei is debatable, but I know how much you love showing of Junpei’s damage lol so I won’t argue with him being useful end game. I won’t rank Shinjiro, because you know. I’d like to here what you think are optimal due to your list at different parts of the game. I considered Early Game up until Shinjiro join, Mid Game up until Adamah is unlocked in January and End Game everything post Adamah’s unlock, though an argument could be made for a Post Game category, I think most people, immediately kill the reaper upon reaching Adamah and therefore reaching level 99 basically straight away. Anyway, great video Tuviee! Definitely worth the wait, good to see Bainz here as well!

6:25 why is akasha arts optimal for MC god's hand deals more damage is there something in the damage calculations that I don't understand?

Ken's Makarakarn and Tetrakarn could be counted towards his damage output right

CTOBN is godlike

Just give Shinji a Null Pierce accesory and he'll be immortal lmao what y'all playing

Since Theurgy stacks with strength and magic, wouldn’t Concentrate(Tranquility) work with physical skills?

good news ez claps for the 1 hundred

Your ranking is great if you are only taking raw amount of damage, but if you take all the tools that a character has there is a lot of biased opinion here. I'm a pro persona player I've played FES and all the "hardest vanilla games", so what I will say is more about the experience in the franchise. Koromaru is the best character in the game outside of Fuuka and MC and I completely support that. It is the only that has access to 4 elements, its best armor null light and has the most amount of tools. Yukari is terrible in damage, and is true that you get a lot of hp items in the game, but in reload money is extremely scarce, in FES around you get Shinjiro you can have easily around a million of yen in reload if you are lucky you have two hundred thousand, even using the fortune teller, and all the healing items are extremely expensive, so having a character that can do that helps a lot. For me just for that reason Yukari is the second best character in the game, and mitsuru, her and Akihiko are needed for boss fights as early junpei is terrible and they are the only source of having a debilitate for boss fights. Magic is awful in reload, but is still a tool that you can use to get AOA. So tranquility is a win, also you can use Yukari healing even if you don't need heal and still charges her theurgy. Ken theurgy charging speed is not fixed, when he is close to none sp he charge each turn his theurgy when you get the fortune. Ken has so many tools 3 elements, healing, fast theurgy, his damage is terrible, but he is an extremely good support and dekaja is needed as more enemies use heat riser as the game advance, ken can't cure ailments and was nerfed as in FES he was the second wind user. Divine intervention is the most broken attack, also he gets heat riser. Ken gameplay is about burning his sp pool with highly cost SP sttacks. Koromaru, Yukari and Ken are the only characters outside of fuuka that have a theurgy that can help the whole party. The rest of the characters have only damage oriented theurgy outside of the MC. Junpei is here, you only forgot to say that he can cover 4 elements, all physical and fire and that he has a weapon that bypass any weakness. Akihiko is here and you say it all, only you forgot that he can use also ice attacks. Mitsuru is here and you forgot that she can use dark attacks having 3 elements. Mitsuru gameplay is about powering freeze ailment as freeze is the best ailment in the game. Aigis is the great in damage, but she can only use buff if the enemy nulls of repel physical. Fortunately she has a weapon that bypass all the weaknesses. Also she resist ailments and can revive. She always will cover 2 elements. Shinjiro is a much worst Akihiko with his thor weapon, only one theurgy his theurgy works the opposite of Ken's theurgy and both have the same speed. The biggest problem of Shinjiro is that his characteristic is useless, the second problem with Shinjiro is how limited is his gameplay. Bloody charge+ physical. Bloody charge +theurgy. If he survived October 4th, he will be the tankiest character next to Aigis, other problem with Shinjiro is that he has less weapons that any character and you have to choose between his ultimate or his thor weapon, the first one to be faster and start with a heavy hitting attack or the thor one if you have an opponent that nulls of repel physical. Nonetheless a worst Aigis, a worst junpei, a worst Akihiko.

Un saludo a personaposting

My list: 1. Yukari Best Girl 💖👑: Healing Apex is the best characteristic in the game reducing in 75% the SP cost of healing skills, she has the fastest way to charge her Theurgy by healing someone every time, if you want to survive and don't buy healing items, she's essential as well. 2. Koromaru Best dog: Powerful dark and fire skills, his high agility makes him untouchable, Power Howling to give Charge to all the party is really good, Revolution to increase the critical rate and Debilitate to reduce all the enemy stats. 3. Aigis: Really strong physical and some useful support skills, her Theurgy charges faster every time she uses a physical attack combined with her characteristic of increasing the damage of all physical attacks and she's the most resistant party member. 4. Ken: A really good versatile character, good electric and light skills, heal and revive allies, Tetrakarn and Makarakarn to reflect attacks and Divine Intervention is the best Theurgy in the game without counting the Armageddon. 5. Akihiko: Still a good party member, strong physical and electric skills, his characteristic of increasing the buff effects on himself can be useful and him and Aigis are the only ones with an AOE Theurgy. 6. Junpei: His physical skills are really good and his characteristic of increasing the critical rate and the critical damage is really good, this combined with Revolution or Bloody Charge you can destroy the enemies, but his magic stat is really low. 7. Mitsuru: She's the strongest magic attacker in the game but that's all, mental ailments against over leveled enemies or bosses are completely useless and there are some ailments that are not very useful, she has Concentrate but we can use Yukari to give Concentrate to all the party and her second Theurgy makes Almighty damage ignoring resistances and reduce all the enemy stats, but Almighty attacks already ignores resistances, so this doesn't make sense and Koromaru can use Debilitate to reduce all the enemy stats more frequently, all she can do, anyone else can do it better than her. 8. Shinjiro: He's completely broken, I don't deny that, but he's at the bottom just because you can only use him for a month and one full moon mission.

U didn't ranked fuuka

Koromaru > Yukari > Ken > Junpei > Akihiko > Mitsuru > Aigis > Shinjiro.