Persona 5 Royal may not be a particularly difficult JRPG, it is still quite easy to overlook your own Persona in lieu of your party’s. As you control the only party member with agency over what skills and abilities you hold, knowing what kind of varied Persona you need to round out your loadout is important.
The Personas on this list are all available below level 20. This list also omits any and all DLC Personas. You will have access to a decent amount of high level Personas early on through this system, but this list will function as though you are opting to avoid them to enjoy the game as intended. With that out of the way, here are the best early game Personas for your first run in Persona 5 Royal.
10 Arsene
Despite being your first and default persona, it’s worth keeping Arsene around for quite a while. Even though the game more or less forces you to fuse with Pixie during a tutorial early into the first palace, using the compendium to add Arsene back to your team is totally worth it in the early game. Even factoring in its pedestrian stats and just okay learned abilities, Arsene will be your earliest access to curse type skills for quite some time. Having one at all times will be helpful. Arsene is vital to your loadout until you can pass Eiha on to someone who can best utilize it though fusion.
9 Pixie
Given Pixie is the first Persona you obtain through the negotiation system tutorial, it’s also one worth keeping around in the short term. Pixie will be your earliest access to healing skills outside of Morgana’s starting Persona, Zorro.
Her early access to the status cure skill, Patra, is also a useful early game ability. Her passive skill of Static Electricity increases your chance of inflicting shock on downed foes with electric attacks synergizes well with Ryuji’s electric skills.
8 Jack Frost
The de facto mascot for the Shin Megami Tensei series is a fan favorite, and with good reason. He offers not only early access to ice skills, but also one of the first skills that targets all opponents with Mabufu at level 12. His passive skill, Frigid Bloodline, will also halve the SP requirement of all his ice skills, which is incredibly useful in long palace or Mementos runs. He also outright nullifies all ice skills used against himself, which can be a lifesaver at times.
7 Jack-o’-Lantern
Jack Frost’s mascot brother, the former Pyro Jack, is Jack Frost’s early game equivalent for fire damage instead of ice. While Jack-o’-Lantern does not have an attack that targets all enemies like Jack Frost’s Mabufu, he makes up for it by absorbing fire damage while Jack Frost only nullifies ice. This means that any fire damage incoming to Jack-o’-Lantern will be absorbed as health rather than just negating it.
6 Berith
Berith is your early game physical damage dealer. You do have two party members in the first palace that handle physical damage better than you can, but Berith is a solid fill-in if you need a little more. This can prove invaluable when your resources are low deep in a palace. While he does not learn Power Slash until level 13, it will be some of your earliest access to skills that attack for more than light damage in the game.
5 Slime
Slime is the de facto early game tank. His resistances to both physical and gun type damage, along with his high starting strength and endurance stats, make him perfect for bracing for damage. While he is weak to both fire and wind type damage, his ability Fire Wall at level 13 will turn his fire weakness into a resistance for 3 turns.
It also learns Tarunda at level 11, which can lower the attack of powerful early game bosses. Slime will not be overly useful for very long, but he fills an important role at a stage where players do not have many options.
4 Shiisaa
One of the biggest issues you will be running into early is a lack of type coverage. Shiisaa is the earliest access you will have to nuclear type attacks. You do not acquire a party member with access to this skill type until the third palace, so Shiisaa is essential to having that base covered. Its resistances are also great. In addition to resisting physical attacks, its weaknesses are both psychic and curse, both of which you will not be running into for some time.
3 High Pixie
High Pixie will serve as a straight upgrade to Pixie later on. High Pixie has wind type attacks in addition to her improved healing skills. She natively has a healing skill with Media that heals your entire party, but she also has an improved single target heal with Diarama. In addition, she has very good status infliction skills with Dormina and Pulinpa that have a chance to inflict either sleep or confusion, respectively. While these types of skills are rarely optimal, these two are your best bet to inflict either throughout the game.
2 Obariyon
Obariyon should be a heavily used physical attacker for your team in the early game. While physical skills are largely used as a change of pace or done when there are no better options, Obariyon’s skill set changes this philosophy. Aside from his physical resistance, he has the earliest access to gun skills with a native Snap attack that does medium damage to a single target.
His real appeal is Lucky Punch at level 14, which — despite doing minimal damage — has an absurdly high critical hit rate in addition to its low HP usage cost. His passive ability Striking Weight will give you a 20% boost to any physical damage he does, which will offset the low damage of Lucky Punch should it not crit.
1 Ippon-datara
Ippon-datara is another tank like Slime, but one that also has better physical skills. Like Slime, he has high endurance and resistances to both gun and fire skills, as well as the ability to repel wind type attacks back at the opponent. His native attack, Sledgehammer, is an early medium damage skill, and he learns Rampage at level 15, which is one of the earliest attacks that can attack multiple times, which it does to all targets. He also has the same ability as Obariyon with Striking Weight, putting that 20% boost to better use with stronger physical attacks.
