Persona 3 Reload lets players choose from over 150 different Personas across the 100-hour experience. All Personas can be good, especially if you have enough dedication and Incense, but only a few of them are the best among the best.
Fusing is the best way to get better Personas in Persona 3 Reload, though the game offers a multitude of ways to raise a Persona’s level and stats. You could bring a Jack Frost to level 99 and max out its stats, and it would perform incredibly well. You can even pick a favorite Persona or two during New Game Plus and use the nights at Game Parade to max out its stats.
Of course, it’s hard to have that amount of dedication if you’re still balancing social stats, Social Links, and whatever Tartarus has in stock for you. We’ve picked the best Personas in Persona 3 Reload so you know which Personas will make your journey much easier.
Top 10 Personas in Persona 3 Reload
This list focuses on the non-DLC Personas since Personas from extra content can break the balance of the game even in Merciless Mode. Just know every one of the DLC Personas can trivialize a lot of the challenges of Persona 3 Reload, so use them at your discretion.
10) Alice
- Pros: Good base Magic stat, Great instakill potential with Die For Me!
- Con: Focused on Darkness unless you add other skills, low Endurance
The queen of death makes her return in Persona 3 Reload. After several iterations in various Persona games, Alice is back with a vengeance and an arsenal of Dark powers. Alice excels at one thing: killing enemies with one fell swoop.
Her signature ability—the timeless Die For Me!—has a high chance of taking down enemies and becomes particularly deadly with Mudo Boost. Maeigaon will deal good Dark damage to anyone involved.
Alice is somewhat unidimensional unless she inherits abilities from other elements, though, and her low base endurance may make her squishy—especially given she only repels Dark and is weak to Light. She can still be among the best Personas in Persona 3 Reload, at least when what’s on the other side of the fight doesn’t resist Dark damage.
9) Scathach
- Pros: Good all-rounder potential, great affinity spread
- Cons: Requires max rank Priestess (Fuuka), low Endurance.
The legendary Scottish warrior has appeared in every Persona game since Persona 2, and now Scathach returns in Persona 3 Reload. As one of the best magic Personas, Scathach brings the power of Ice and Wind to your arsenal. With high-level skills like Mabufudyne and Magarudyne, she makes for a perfect late-game addition to your party.
Not only does Scathach nullify Ice and Pierce, but she also resists Wind and Light. Her only weakness is Fire, which is easy to remedy. She has a lot of potential for changes, but she’s also pretty great fresh off the Velvet Room.
8) Susano-o
- Pros: Hard-hitting Slash damage from the get-go, little set-up required
- Cons: Time-gated until Fool Rank 10, has two weaknesses (Elec and Light)
Susano-o wields his legendary blade, the Ame no Murakumo, to perfection with powerful Slash attacks like Brave Blade and Vorpal Blade. If you’re looking for a purely physical damage Persona to fit your lineup, Susano-o is the one for you.
The brilliance of Susano-o is how little setup he requires. The second you fuse him, he shows up with severe Slash abilities and Charge. Slash Amp is on the table at level 81, too, which helps. And that’s before taking inherited skills into account.
Being great comes with a burden, though: Susano-o is weak to both Electric and Light. Though he learns Repel Light at level 84, he’s still wide open to Zio attacks unless you spend another passive slot to mitigate that weakness.
7) Thanatos
- Pros: Good resistances
- Cons: Focused on Dark damage
Death itself walks Tartarus, and we’re not talking about the Reaper. Thanatos is a good option for the late-game if you need a Persona that uses Dark damage and isn’t Alice.
The embodiment of the Death Arcana resists all Magic damage except Almighty, though it’s weak to Light. This means one single Resist or Null Light Skill Card makes Thanatos pretty much bulletproof when it comes to magic damage.
With access to Eiga and Mudo skills and a high Magic stat by default, Thanatos is versatile enough that he can take on different roles depending on how you want to build him.
The downside is he’s a Special Fusion that encompasses the rest of the Death Arcana, so it may take a bit of tinkering to pass along anything high-level that doesn’t deal Dark damage. His affinities still make him great to work with, and being the literal poster child of the original Persona 3 grants him some style points.
6) Satan
- Pros: Powerful attacks and abilities, self-resolving weakness
- Cons: Bad SP economy
Satan has access to a devastating kit in Persona 3 Reload. It can naturally learn Diamond Dust, Megidolaon, Concentrate, and Debilitate. It also learns Repel Wind at level 88, taking care of its only weakness. And if that wasn’t alluring enough, it’s the only Persona with access to its signature skill, Black Viper, which deals tremendous Almighty damage to a single target. It’s also half of the unlock requirements for the Armageddon Theurgy, one of the game’s deadliest abilities.
The downside of all that firepower is that Satan eats up a lot of SP. A single cast of Black Viper will set you back 70SP, so use its power carefully. Pass on Spell Master to this persona and don’t be afraid to use a few SP-restoring items: it’s probably worth it.
5) Masakado
- Pros: Great potential for physical damage, good affinity spread, free Debilitate
- Cons: Quite a bit of setup required
Unlike Susano-o, Masakado needs a bit of help to live up to his full potential, but he’s more than worth the effort. The legendary warrior resists all three physical damage types and Dark, and even repels Light magic. His only weakness is Electric, which is easy to remedy with skill cards.
Leveling Masakado grants you access to Debilitate, Crit Rate Amp, and Arms Master, which can be essential to improving your damage output. Elizabeth also tasks you with making a Masakado with Charge for a request, already giving you a leg up with a powerful combo. And with how useful physical abilities can be in Tartarus, having a good physical Persona can make your journey much easier.
As a bonus, Masakado is a special fusion of four physical-based Personas. This means you’ll probably have a good array of inherited skills to choose from, making it easy to build him. He is a somewhat niche pick, but we’ve had tremendous success using him as our main Persona. In Tartarus (and in that one exam question on July 16), Masakado is the answer.
4) Helel
- Pros: Almighty damage, main way to pass Almighty Boost without DLC, great elemental affinities
- Cons: Weak to Ice, requires max Star Social Link.
Helel, the Daystar, is the head of the Star Arcana and the beautiful embodiment of Lucifer. If Messiah is the strongest defensive Persona, Helel would be his offensive counterpart.
Helel’s most appealing trait is undoubtedly Almighty damage, made even stronger by his signature Almighty Boost ability. This is the main way to obtain Almighty Boost without DLC Personas, and it’s also the main ingredient to making Almighty Amp.
Having access to Heat Riser and Spell Master doesn’t hurt Helel’s odds, either.
As the icing on the Almighty cake, Helel resists all physical damage and absorbs both Light and Dark. His only weakness is Ice, and a single passive ability can offset that disadvantage. When its cons are “weak to Ice” and “asks you to max one of the easiest Social Links” (Star), it’s certainly a small price to pay to have one of the best Personas in the game at your disposal.
3) Lucifer
- Pros: Free high-level elemental skills and Concentrate, zero weaknesses
- Cons: Obtained late in the game
If you’re looking for death, destruction, and damage potential, look no further than Lucifer in Persona 3 Reload. Lucifer has access to the highest-damaging variants of Fire, Wind, and Ice, plus Megidolaon and Debilitate—all that with zero weaknesses and a great stat package.
The main downsides for this colossal Persona is that you need at least level 89 to fuse him (or level 84 with the Sun Major Arcana), and you need to invite Elizabeth into your room. Whether you boldly accept or gently decline, she will let you fuse Lucifer once she’s visited the dorm, giving you access to one of the game’s best Personas.
2) Messiah
- Pros: Great stats, amazing elemental affinities, heavily defensive
- Cons: Needs some help from skill cards or fusions, unlocked late into the game
Messiah lies at the top of the Judgement Arcana and is one of the most powerful playable entities in Persona 3. His power lies in his defense. This comes down to his natural resistance against Magic attacks, repelling Light and Dark and resisting the rest of the elements (except for Almighty).
You need to max out the Judgment Social Link to unlock Messiah, so you may not get that much mileage out of him in Tartarus. You can always take him for a spin into the final fights and into the Monad Passage on floor 255, though.
Messiah is more defensive by default, so if you want to give him more firepower, you need to make sure he inherits the skills you want. This can be difficult when Messiah’s recipe is Orpheus and Thanatos, but you can always use Skill Cards or make your Orpheus learn higher-end abilities from top Personas. Messiah’s success depends on how you build him, but he has a strong foundation.
Best Persona in Persona 3 Reload: Orpheus Telos
- Pros: Resists all damage except Almighty
- Cons: You need to max out all Social Links in one playthrough.
It’s hard not to rate Orpheus Telos as the best Persona in Persona 3 Reloaded. He resists all forms of damage except Almighty and learns most skills in the game. His signature ability, Victory Cry, is perfect for exploring Tartarus since it refills your health and SP after a win. As a bonus, him being a fusion from other great Personas like Helel and Messiah ensures he has a multitude of high-powered skills to inherit.
Greatness comes at a hefty price for Orpheus Telos, though: you have to max out all Social Links in the same playthrough. This happened toward the end of January for us, so we only really got good mileage out of him in New Game Plus.
Bonus Round: Best Persona 3 Reload DLC Personas
The 10 Personas we’ve listed are the perfect selection for beating the original game without an issue. However, if you’re into optional content and feel like turning your playthrough into a breeze from the get-go, you can purchase a DLC and opt for one of the additional Personas you can get in the package. You can summon each of them in the Compendium for free. These are the three DLC Personas we consider the best.
3) Magatsu-Izanagi
Magatsu-Izanagi is a level 50 Persona and the strongest one in the Persona 4 Golden DLC. Besides being resistant to Piercing damage and immune to Dark and Bless damage, it makes traversing Tartarus easy with its Magatsu Mandala ability. This ability hits all your enemies with strong curse damage and makes traversing all the different floors a breeze unless you get jumped by a shadow.
2) Cendrillon
Like many of the DLC Personas, Cendrillon has the unique Driver skill for an element—in her case, Slash. Driver passives are more powerful than Boosts and Amps, and they stack with similar buffs. Physical damage is already important enough in the endgame, but Cendrillon’s Slash Driver also boosts the power of the Scarlet Havoc Theurgy. Scarlet Havoc is powerful enough, but with the right buffs, this becomes pretty much an instant win button against most of what you’ll face in the game.
1) Satanael
Satanael is the most powerful Persona of the game and one of those who make the game unfairly easy. It’s the ultimate Persona that the Persona 5 Protagonist can reach, and is unstoppable due to its resistance to all elemental damage, Bless damage immunity, and the fact that it can heal using Dark damage. Not only that, but you can summon it at no cost, regardless of your level.
If you want to get some of the hardest achievements in the game and you’re having trouble doing so with the original game’s Personas, look no further than the ones we’ve listed in our bonus round.
