Though selective party-building has always been a hallmark of thePersonaseries, it’s never been as imperative to be careful in your selections than inPersona 5 Tactica. Since you’ve only got three party members in this 2023 spin-off title, whose skills need to be manually unlocked as the story progresses, you’ll need to make the most of what you’ve got.
Between building each member of the Phantom Thieves’ Skill Trees in a purposeful way is critical, as is ensuring your artillery is powerful and your stat bonuses are stacking effectively. A well-made P5T party can be a make-or-break difference!
Updated Jul 11, 2025:We’ve added a video version of this guide to help you create the ultimate Persona 5 Tactica party.
Making The Most Of Your Three Party Members
Build Everyone’s Skill Trees
Since you’re down toonly three Phantom Thieves in your partyper fight from the usual four from the core games, you’ll need tobe more selective in your team-buildingnow than you have been before.
This is because, although the entire party levels up together,everyone has an individual Skill Treethat you’ll need to flesh out manually in order to make them stronger throughout the game.
The Skill Tree contains power-ups for things like everyone’s uniqueelemental attacks, a few differentsupport skillsto aid in battle, boosts forCharges and Follow-Ups, and increased allowances formovement or attack range, so be sure tospend your GP whenever neededto unlock new skills.
Baton Pass: Replace Fainted Party Members Mid-Battle
Though you do only get three Thieves per fight at any given time, you’re thankfully able toautomatically use Baton Pass to swap out fallen party members.
You’ll need to let your enemies' turn finish, but once it does, Futaba willgive you a choice on who to bring into replace them. Following some flavor text, you’ll be able to use this substitute Thief as normal on your next turn.
This is only possible so long as the victory conditions for that fight don’t include not letting someone get knocked out.
Certain battles will fail automatically if you lose too many Phantom Thieves - which can sometimes be as low as a single KO - so do your best not to rely on substitutes where possible.
Only the three Thieves who end the battle are on the end screen, but it’s good to know there’s (usually) backup available if you ever need it.
Every Thief Has A Passive, Party-Wide Boost
As indicated by thebold, colored icons on the right of the party select screen, each of the Phantom Thieves has their owninnate boostthey bring to the team.
These will always be anincrease to some element of your team, whether it’s:
Experiment with different combinationsof boosts to see which ones work for you, but be mindful that this may bedifferent between fightsdepending on the ultimate goals of each.
Unused Party Members Reach Peak Condition
One of the bright sides of having such a wide pool of teammates and only being able to use three is that the majority of your team needs to stay back in a fight, but anyone whohasn’t been used in the fight beforewill reachPeak Conditionbefore the next fight.
Anyone with aglowing blue shadow around their portraitin the team select menu is in Peak Condition. When they are, they’ll enter the next battle witha higher max HP and SPthan they normally have.
Essential Tips For Building Your Party
Consider Each Thief’s Range
In Persona 5 Tactica, when making your way through battles and advancing on enemies,each Thief can only move a set number of squares of distance per turn. When it’s their time to attack, they can move within aset movement range outlined in white, and they can attack from any point in this range.
By default, this range isbetween four and seven squares, depending on the Thief. This limit can be upgraded, though, by enhancing theA Rebellious Resolve column in the Skill Tree.
In battles where outright damage is the goal, this may not be a bad thing, but if you need to get everyone across the board, it’s critical to bring high-movement teammates.
Additionally,guns and skills also have effect ranges, meaning you’ll need to position your team carefully to inflict the highest amount of damage. Like the Thieves themselves, these are alsounique to each Thief, so experiment to find out whose ranged weapons work for you.
Buy Or Build Better Guns
While you can indeedbuy weapons from the Shop screen while at your Hideoutat any point during the game, you’ll soon find that thestrongest weapons for each Thief are made from Personas.
Fused in the Velvet Roomlike the normal Persona-crafting process, you can ask Lavenza tofuse two or more specific Personasaccording to the recipes she gives you. This ability unlocksafter finishing Lady Marie’s Kingdom.
First, you’llselect which character’s weaponyou’d like to make,which opens a menu of ahandful of unique weapons exclusive to that Thief.
But in Persona 5 Tactica, these recipes don’t force you to use any Personas specifically - you’re able to use any that meeteach weapon’s individualfusion criteria.
You’ll no doubt have noticed that your Personas all havePersona levels, and you can create higher-level Personas as yourPhantom Thief levelincreases. And although elemental damage doesn’t seem to be as sharp a focus in battle, every Persona will also have astatus affinityas well.
These aremulticolored elemental or status ailment symbolsin the menu. Though the specific affinities don’t impact much in battle, you canuse any Persona of the mentioned affinity that’s at or above the level requiredfor weapon materials.
For example, Joker’s first unique weapon, Negaholic, requires a Persona with the Despair affinity who is at least Level 18, and a Persona with the Despair affinity who is at least Level 23.
It doesn’t matter by how much they exceed that level requirement, so long as they do. A Level 96 Despair Persona would work just as well as a Level 23 or Level 18 Despair Persona.
This function makes it all but imperative that youfill out your Persona Compendiumthoroughly and often - you never know what ingredient Personas you may need down the line.
