Persona 5: The Best Confidants (Social Links) to Invest Your Time In

Hermit – Futaba Sakura

Best Confidants in Persona 5

Futaba is the Confidant that represents the Hermit Arcana. She’s a bit shy, but willing to help you along with the rest of the Phamtom Thieves. She’ll join your crew automatically after 8/31 as part of the story, but she requires a huge time investment since you need to really up your kindness to pursue any further dealings with her as far as Confidant abilities go. Rank 4 (Selfless) is required to keep the bond going, so make sure to read some books and do some work for Sojiro.

It may seem like a chore to raise that Social Stat, but Futaba’s abilities focus on support and allowing you to turn the tables during tricky battles. Her Rank 4 ability, Position Hack, provides a chance to instantly Hold Up enemies at the start of a battle (though you won’t be able to capture any of them). This can only trigger if you didn’t ambush them, meaning it can work if the enemies ambush you instead (which is never a fun position to be in). Emergency Shift, her Rank 9 ability, provides a chance to swap two KO’d teammates with two healthy ones. That can really turn the tables during a bad fight, giving you a leg up on your adversaries.

On top of these skills, Futaba has the usual support abilities such as healing the party, restoring SP (which is very valuable), and even offering a chance to completely nullify a fatal attack on any party member. Not too shabby, not too shabby at all. 

Strength – Caroline and Justine

Best Confidants in Persona 5

We’re going to be clear here, if you like Personas just as they come and have no interest in fusing the best darn spirit that you possibly can, move along to the next page. That’s really all that Caroline and Justine have to offer through their Strength Arcana, but it’s definitely a great way to have some serious firepower on your side. It does take a lot of effort from you though, in the form of obtaining and fusing Personas.

Starting on 5/18 (in the game), you can speak to them in the Velvet Room. They’ll want you to fuse specific Personas with specific abilities. This may come across as easy for some (capable of being done in one day), or troublesome for others who have trouble obtaining certain Personas. However, for the effort you’ll earn abilities that allow you to fuse more than two Personas at a time, develop resistances for them, and even obtain ones that are a much higher level than you, making you an unstoppable, spiritual machine. 

Death – Tae Takemi

Best Confidants in Persona 5

There are a lot of different vendors throughout the game’s world, but not many have really good restorative items. Normally you have to hope that you get some good finds while nabbing treasure and opening chests within Mementos and Palaces. Tae Takemi is the doctor you can find working in a small office nearby in some back alley. She’s actually pretty cool, but will want to test out her medicines on you so she can develop better items.

You can’t just go trying everything out willy-nilly, you’ll need to develop Guts which takes a bit of time. Partaking in risky or challenging behavior such as studying in a noisy library (what a rebel!) will build this stat up. As you progress, though, you’ll gain access to more useful items that will keep you in fighting form and you’ll even earn a discount. It’s much better than relying on food that only restores a few measly points of life. 

Temperance – Sadayo Kawakami

Best Confidants in Persona 5

One of the biggest hurdles in Persona 5 is time management. You’re a full-time student who also happens to be a Phantom Thief with deadlines to take out specific targets. Between both of those demanding positions, you have to manage your social life, obtain power, and sometimes work odd jobs for a bit of extra scratch. This is where your teacher Sadayo Kawakami steps in.

You can’t start working on this relationship until 5/24, but once you do she will start providing abilities that let you multitask. The first one, Slack Off, lets you complete an activity while you’re sitting in her class. As you progress, you’ll obtain the ability to call her to do favors for you (for the cost of 5,000 Yen). She can craft Infiltration Tools for you while you’re out, do laundry, cook food, or brew coffee. One of the best abilities is Special Massage. She’ll give you a massage after you’ve visited a Palace or Mementos, allowing you to do an activity at night. Normally your night ends when visiting those places, wasting precious time.

You can get a lot done in a single day thanks to her assistance, which will help in gathering resources and leveling up stats instead of just sitting down doing one thing. She’s one cool teacher. 

Tower – Shinya Oda

Best Confidants in Persona 5

This Confidant is mostly for those who really like to use guns during combat (I personally do). Firearms can really help you out in a pinch while also taking out large groups very quickly. These weapons aren’t great against every enemy, though, at least not until the Tower, Shinya Oda, steps in. You can gain access to Oda as a Confidant after unlocking Akihabara (on 9/4) which unlocks a new mission from Mishima concerning a cheater. You’ll need a minimum of Kindness Rank 3 to start forming this bond, so start working on that.

In exchange for strengthening this bond, you’ll receive skills directly related to your guns. A few notable ones are Down Shot, which lets you take down enemies who aren’t even weak to guns (except for bosses), and Cheap Shot, which makes Down Shot take less ammo. Ammo Pouch is a great ability since it lets you carry a healthy amount of extra bullets, but the real special skill here is Oda Special. Joker’s guns (Joker is you) will ignore all resistances to hit a target, letting you dish out the hurt to anyone. 

Star – Hifumi Togo

Best Confidants in Persona 5

There is no greater ability than being able to control how a battle goes. Deciding to switch to better party members, running when you want to, and getting out of ambushes will make later parts of the game much easier. This is exactly what Hifumi Togo, bearer of the Star Arcana, is for. You can’t recruit her until the end of June, but you’ll hear NPCs talking about her and this unlocks the ability to visit Kanda where you can meet her and start talking as long as you have a Knowledge ranking of at least 1 (which everyone does).

The reason you’ll want to go out of your way to visit her is that she has a bunch of abilities that let you swap party members mid-battle and even run from sticky situations. At first, you’ll only be able to swap players during Joker’s turn. The final ability for this Confidant lets you change them on anyone’s turn. You can also escape all battles (not counting bosses), and even have a chance for any party member to use a follow-up attack (even if you haven’t unlocked it for them).

Of course, it’s the swapping ability that’s the real big deal here. Sometimes party members will become weak, forcing you to retreat. You can swap them by going to the entrance of the Palace or Mementos, but that resets the enemies. This way, you don’t have to leave at all and just keep trucking. 

Moon – Yuuki Mishima

Best Confidants in Persona 5

Yuuki is one of the students you save early on in the game. He becomes a huge fan after figuring out that you are, in fact, a member of the Phantom Thieves. He’ll work to get you new missions so you can increase your popularity and garner more support from the public, since he’s not really good at fighting and other forms of confrontation.

His abilities are really useful, though, especially later in the game when you have more potential party members. Normally, characters you don’t use while exploring don’t earn any EXP. With Yuuki, they’ll earn a portion of what you earn, and maxing him out lets them earn the same amount of EXP as you even though they aren’t being used. On top of that, he will increase the amount of EXP characters earn while in battle so everyone starts leveling up faster. 

Sun – Toranosuke Yoshida

Best Confidants in Persona 5

Toranosuke Yoshida is all about getting as much out of the Shadows you encounter as you possibly can. Negotiating with enemies is a major component of the Persona 5 experience, so you might as well do whatever you can to ensure that you get everything you possibly can from those heathens. Thanks to his charisma and public speaking abilities, Yoshida can make it a reality.

His skills revolve around negotiations. You’ll be able to make extra requests while negotiating, increase the chances of getting rare items, even sometimes outright skip the conversation and recruit the Personas before you. The best ability is unlocked when this Confidant reaches Rank 10. You’ll gain the ability to form contracts with high-level Shadows. Normally you can only recruit those of a equal or lesser level than yours. This really flips the script and grants you some real firepower.