Each Persona is given access to many different abilities as they level up or when you use skill cards. You're able to equip up to 8 skills for each persona, making it important to select these skills carefully.

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Passive skills are constantly in effect, making some of them more beneficial than other active skills. As you're only able to use one skill per turn, it's important to mix in a few useful passive abilities to buff your personas. Here are the best passive skills you need to be on the look for.

Updated By Joshua Leeds On January 29th, 2023: While passive skills may not do direct damage to your enemies, there are many options and can significantly increase the capabilities of the persona. With the incredible difficulty of some of the secret bosses of this game, it's essential to have a wide range of powerful passive skills.

15 Sharp Student

Persona Thorth With Sharp-Student

Sharp Student lowers the possibility of getting hit by a critical by about half. Joker's health is the most important in your party, and his death means an immediate game over. Critical hits not only deal a large amount of damage, but leaves the possibility of the enemy getting to attack again.

Should the enemy land a critical hit, there is a good chance their follow-up attack will also be on Joker, and with him being already downed, this can often lead to a very sudden game over, even when you have a lot of health.

14 Growth 3

Persona Arsene With Growth 3

Growth 3 allows the persona with the skill to earn full XP from a battle while not being equipped. Later in the game, you can have a large pool of powerful personas to choose from, and some may fall behind in level if not used often.

Personas are already difficult to level up, and this skill will keep your personas levels up. Having multiple personas with this ability can have Joker's entire list leveling up equally with your most used personas.

13 Insta-Heal

Persona Rangda With Insta-Heal

While there are social link skills that have a possibility of recovering status ailments quicker, this skill will heal all status ailments on the first turn for sure. Later game bosses and secret bosses capitalize on status ailments and being affected by some for more than a turn can quickly turn the tables of a battle.

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Joker is by far your best party member with the most options in battle. Status ailments that take his turn or SP can be a great hindrance on your team than if it affects other party members, making this skill invaluable in a fight where your enemies focus on status effects.

12 Regenerate 3

Persona Chi You With Regenerate 3

Regen 3 will automatically recover the user's HP at the start of their turn as long as the persona is equipped. A few fights have Joker fighting 1v1, and having an automatic heal each turn can quickly add up and keep you in the fight.

Should your persona rely heavily on physical attacks that cost HP, this passive skill will help negate the total cost, healing the player each turn before the cast. This skill also goes off a percentage of the user's HP, making it more effective at a higher level and with higher max health.

11 High Counter

Persona Kakini With High Counter

Physical attacks are considered the most recurring damage type to be used by enemies in the game, while all enemies have a basic attack that deals physical damage they rely on from time to time.

Some bosses also have powerful physical attacks, and this skill not only prevents the attack from hitting you but also reflects the damage. While this skill only has a 20% chance to activate, it can be a lifesaver at times and often occur enough to be beneficial in more drawn-out fights.

10 Mage's Gift

Nuclear Magic Being Used by Mithras

When fusing a persona, getting access to multiple elemental abilities helps make the persona more versatile in any situation. While many personas learn abilities that boost a single element's damage, Mage's gift boosts all of them.

This skill is perfect for a persona who is using different elements, as it boosts all of their damage by 25%. This passive skill is good to pass on with fusion to later personas which have multiple different elemental attacks.

9 Spell Master

Persona 5 Royal Combat Menu

Running out of SP in a palace or battle is not only a hassle, but can lead to a game over in your next fight. With Spell Master, all SP costs for the equipped persona are cut in half. Early game personas have little SP pools, making this skill very effective at any stage of the game.

As you progress into the game, powerful spells use very high amounts of SP. While this does balance the game in the late game, this passive skill helps break that balance. You'll be able to use devastating damage spells many times before needing to worry about your SP pool.

8 Auto-Mataru

Persona 5 Royal Auto-Mataru On Hope Diamond

Matarukaja is a spell that increases your entire party's attack for three turns. This spell is incredibly helpful, and with Auto-Mataru, you're able to cast this spell for free at the start of the battle.

This allows you to instantly jump into attacking at the start of combat to give you the edge. The only downside to this ability is it is only used once at the start of a battle, and you're not able to use Matarukaja throughout the battle. Aside from boss battles, Auto-mataru is the better option, allowing you to be buffed for any battle and making farming much faster.

7 Repel Physical

Persona 5 Royal Repel Physical on Kali

Physical damage is one of the most common types of damage to be thrown your way. It can be easy to increase your defense and take lower the damage, more fun solutions exist in this game.

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While decreasing its damage or absorbing it is very helpful, the ability to send that damage back to your enemy is even better. This ability gives you a bonus attack by having an enemy hit themselves, and you take no damage.

6 Almighty Amp

Persona 5 Royal Lucifer Persona with Morning Star

Almighty damage is a strong magic attack that cannot be resisted or repelled. It is perfect and does high amounts of damage to any enemy, and some of the best magic attacks in the game use almighty damage.

Almighty Amp gives all almighty damage by the persona a 50% boost. This stacks with already incredibly high damage attacks, making them one-shot abilities for most non-boss battles.

5 Soul Chain

P5R Baton Pass Level 3 For Yusuke

Even with items or skills, SP management always finds a way to be important. Persona 5 Royal reworked Baton passes to increase your damage and restore HP and SP with each pass. While any SP regenerated is helpful, Soul Chain help increases it further.

This skill works no matter what the party members' baton pass level is, and restores 20 SP to the equipped party member. This skill does build on the Baton Pass level and allows you to gain further SP for each pass, recovering around 30 SP.

4 Ali Dance

Persona 5 Royal Ali Dance on Vanadis

Going to the other end of the defensive scale, Ali dance gives you a 50% evasion rate. This skill focuses purely on evasion and can have the added defense of armor. The bonuses to defense can be useful but never reach substantial levels later in the game.

This skill is percentage based and not an assured one-on-one-off flow. With it being a chance, some battles can result in your only getting hit every few turns, or getting hit multiple times in a row.

3 Firm Stance

Persona 5 Royal Firm Stance On Satanael

Defense in this game is split between damage absorption and evasion. Some armor focuses on one stat while sacrificing points in the other. Focusing on one or the other is the best way to maximize your defensive strategy, and make it more reliable than mixing the two.

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Firm stance focuses purely on damage absorption, cutting all damage in half. This does come at the penalty of losing evasion completely. Only taking half damage is perfect for boss fights than spam strong attacks, as it will be left to chance if Joker stays up or not.

2 Enduring Soul

Persona 5 Royal Enduring Soul On Grimehkala

A recurring mechanic in JRPGs is the game over that follows losing the main character. In Persona 5 Royal this mechanic makes an appearance and can lead to incredibly frustrating moments when Joker is the only one going down and the game overscreen follows.

Enduring Soul not only lets Joker survive what would be a killing blow but also regenerates him to full health. This is perfect for instantly getting back into the fight and using your next action more usefully than just healing right away.

1 Holy Whisper

Persona 5 Royal Holy Whisper On Maria

Passive skills that regenerate health each turn are helpful. Passive skills that regenerate SP are even better. Passive skills that regenerate a large amount of both make you incredibly strong and resilient for any fight.

Holy Whisper regenerates 15% of both HP and SP. With this being a percentage, it gets better and scales as your level up, making it even more effective in the later levels. Mixing and matching with other passive skills and increasing Joker's base stats can lead to this ability recovering incredibly high amounts of each stat every turn, allowing you to focus purely on attacking.

Next: Persona 5 Royal: All Palaces, Ranked