You just started Persona 5: The Phantom X and everything feels a little different than games you are used to. This is because Persona 5X features a turn based combat system that seems to be making somewhat of a combat recently. But it can be quite confusing for players who are used to more traditional combat in their gacha games. In this guide, we will breakdown how combat works alongside strategies that you can use to take advantage of enemy weaknesses. Without further delay, let’s dive in and see how you can master your battles!
Complete Combat Guide
The combat in Persona 5: The Phantom X is primarily turn based which has been a staple of the Persona series. However, a lot of the systems in this game will throw off fans, because of the gacha elements.
If you’re having trouble with all these different systems, you might want to check out our complete starter guide for an overview of all of them!
Combat Encounters
When you start off the game, you’ll likely engage in the Palace game mode – which is the main story mode of Persona 5X. In the story, you do not start off in combat encounters immediately.
You’ll need to actually move around the area and come across enemies. The way you approach enemies will dictate how combat encounters start out. It can go one of two ways:
- Enemy ambushes you
- Enemy goes first in the fight
- You ambush the enemy from a hiding spot or from behind
- You go first in the fight.
Additionally, if you’re over leveled and engage the enemy first, you can actually defeat them immediately. Doing so allows you to get all the experience and currency immediately – without having to go into a fight.
Of course, if you’re doing the other content in the game, then you’ll start off in combat immediately. But in the Palace mode, you can be strategic and not just rush head into fights.
Turn Order
Once you’re in a fight, you may find that your characters’ turns aren’t really in the order that you organized your team in. This is because your team’s turn order is actually dictated by their Speed. The higher the speed, the earlier their turn will be.
You can check each character’s turn by selecting them and going into their stats page. So, if there’s a character who you want to go first, you might want to improve their Speed stats with Arcana Cards.
Typically, you want your buffers/debuffers to go first followed by your DPS characters. This rotation allows you to make the most out of the damage your DPS units will do.
Additionally, you can also see the turn order in the top left corner of your screen. Doing so allows you to plan out ahead and do skills that will help support the rest of the team.
You can also see what order the enemies will attack you in.
Combat Basics
When you’re in battle, you’ll see a variety of combat options in the bottom right corner, which many Persona fans will already be familiar with. Here is a breakdown of what all the options do:
- Persona
- Three skills depending on the personas you chose
- Sword
- Melee Attack
- Gun
- Ranged Attack
- You can shoot multiple times depending on the bullets you have
- Support
- Dedicated skills of the Navigator that are only available after a set amount of turns
- Highlight
- Ultimate move that you can use when it reaches 100%
- Item
- Consume an item
- Keep in mind that this does count as a turn
- Guard
- Halves damage with ailment protection/ but guarantees hit
- Prevents you from dying from Despair
Weaknesses And Interactions
When you use a skill in the game, it costs a certain amount of SP. Be sure to keep an eye out on each character’s SP to ensure that you can use skills when you need to.
Additionally, you can also see what type of skill it is, such as AoE or single target.
When you’re using skills, you’ll see what effects these skills can have on enemies based on enemy attributes. These interactions with attributes are the following:
- WEAK – The enemy is vulnerable to this attribute. They will take increased damage from the attack, and will reduce the Toughness stacks (numbers in yellow)
- RESIST – The enemy is resistant to this attribute. They will take decreased damage from any attacks of this attribute.
- NULL – The enemy is immune to this attribute. Any attack of this attribute will deal no damage at all.
- REPEL – The enemy reflects this attribute. Any attack of this attribute will bounce back, dealing damage to you instead.
- ABSORB – The enemy absorbs this attribute. Instead of taking damage, they will recover HP when hit by this attribute.
Keep in mind that landing a Critical Hit with Physical or Gun Attributes will reduce Toughness stacks, even if the enemies resist it.
So, your goal will be to reduce the Toughness Stacks while ensuring that you get the Weak interaction for maximum damage. Of course, this will depend on each skill and how it interacts with the opponent.
Once all the Toughness stacks are gone, this causes the enemy to get Knocked Down. There are different interactions that you can do with knocked out enemies, depending on if you knock out one or all of them.
Here is a breakdown of the mechanics:
- 1 MORE
- When you successfully Knockdown an enemy, it will trigger 1 MORE.
- In Persona 5X, it functions more like a bonus attack rather than an extra turn.
- Each character can only use their 1 MORE attack once per round.
- In settings, you can change it so that you can choose instead of the game auto choosing.
- All Out Attack
- When all enemies are Knocked-down, you can launch an All-Out-Attack, dealing damage to all enemies.
- The total damage increases based on how many allies participate.
- In this game, you can initiate an All Out Attack even if the Protagonist is unavailable.
After this, the enemy’s Toughness stacks will return and you’ll need to wittle them down as you did before.
Navigators
After a few rounds you should be able to use your Navigator skills by pressing the Support button. Doing so takes you to another menu where the Navigator has their own personalized set of skills.
They are worth using as in most cases they can be used to increase your defense or debuff the enemies in some way. In this way, your team can do a lot more damage.
You can check out our best units to reroll for guide to see what navigators are worth getting at the start.
Highlight (Ultimate)
We’ll quickly touch up on Highlights, which are the Ultimates in this game. After you’ve used a few skills and progressed through a fight, the star in the bottom right corner should light up. This means that you Ultimate is ready.
Most people tend to go with the Highlight that does the most amount of damage. But in some cases, using a Highlight that buffs or debuffs can be useful too as it allows characters after the Highlight to shine.
In some cases, you can use it to do damage multiple times, like with Joker. It really depends on the situation.
We also suggest holding onto it for a few moves and not using it immediately, so you can use it at the best possible moment.
Additionally, some characters have form switches and other moves instead of Highlights in this game unlike other Persona games.
For example, Sumire has something called Masquerade which allows her to Crit with her Highlight and Mesa can change his form using his Highlight. So, Highlights work quite differently in this game with more variety.
That’s everything you need to know for the complete combat guide for Persona 5: The Phantom X. In this way, you should be much prepared for battles now and will be able to take advantage of interactions and weaknesses. Remember to check what each skill does instead of doing skills blindly, or you’ll have a tough time with the game!
