Persona 5 Royal added something new to the battle system that was not in the original, that being Persona traits. Traits act as abilities that can have various effects such as increasing damage dealt, lowering the SP cost of skills, among many others. A full list of traits can be found on this page.
Since traits are new, and the game has not been out very long, there are a few misunderstandings on how certain traits really work. Since you’re not able to change a trait after fusion, it’s pretty important to know how it actually works, because you don’t want to spend time maxing out stats on a Persona whose trait doesn’t function how you think it does. I wanted to make this post to clear some misconceptions, and I’ll keep it updated as I’m able to test more myself.
Related:
Are all traits transferable?
All traits can be passed on, except for DLC Persona traits.
What is the chance rate of party member traits activating?
Some party members have traits that do not activate every time, and are instead chance based, such as Ryuji, Ann and Akechi. I tested how often their traits activated during Velvet Room challenge battles. Ryuji’s trait Raging Temper activated 12/60 times and Ann’s trait Mastery of Magic activated 6/30 times, so fair to say the chance rate on their traits is ~20%. Akechi’s trait Tactical Spirit (Chance to halve Support skill costs for all allies) activated 29/50 times, so his seems to activate at a ~60% rate.
Also, Izanagi has a trait named ‘God Maker’, which increases the chance of ally traits activating. When equipping Izanagi, Raging Temper activated 36/61 times, almost 60%, which means that God Maker seems to triple the chances of ally traits working. Tactical Spirit, with God Maker equipped, activated every time.
Does Pagan Allure exceed the damage cap?
One of the biggest causes of confusion seems to be Satanael’s original trait, Pagan Allure, whose in-game description reads, “Strengthens magic skills by 50%”. Before going further, it’s important to know how damage boosting works in P5. All damage boosts are multiplicative, so if you have something like Boost+Amp+Magic Ability, you would expect to have 2.34x damage (1.25*1.5*1.25). However, there is a damage cap that restricts damage boosting to 100%, meaning those 3 skills would at most give you a 2x damage buff.
The JP wiki upon release stated that Satanael’s trait does not exceed the 100% damage cap, so if you already have something like Boost+Amp+Magic Ability, Pagan Allure will not add any damage on top of that. Satanael’s trait was the only one mentioned that could not exceed the damage cap, while other traits such as Mighty Gaze/Intense Focus (Strengthen multi-target or single target magic by 20%) could.
Luckily, SodiumCat was able to test this out recently and posted their results on Youtube, I’d recommend watching the video to see for yourself.
The TLDW is that yes, Pagan Allure does not exceed the damage cap, so if you already have Boost+Amp+Magic Ability you will not see any extra damage due to Pagan Allure. However, Mighty Gaze/Intense Focus/Will of the Sword do exceed the cap, so if you are making a Magic-based Persona, those traits would be better. Satanael’s trait seems to be the only one that has this damage cap restriction.
It should be noted here that although Satanael’s trait doesn’t exceed the damage cap, his exclusive skill Tyrant’s Mind (1.25x boost to all attacks) can.
How does Will of the Sword work?
Another trait that has led to some confusion is Will of the Sword. Its in-game description reads, “Triples the effect of Charge/Concentrate.” Charge/Concentrate regularly make the next attack do 2.5x damage, so there was a question of whether Will of the Sword changes the multiplier to 3x or if it triples the effectiveness of Charge itself, causing the next attack to do 7.5x damage (3 * 2.5).
I went about testing it with Futsunushi. Brave Blade with no Charge did 2693 damage on avg, while Charged Brave Blade did 8039 damage on avg. So Charge multiplied the attack by 3x, not 7.5x. This means Will of the Sword gives an effective 20% damage boost (3 / 2.5).
The second question is, does Will of the Sword need to be on the Persona who attacks or the buffer? To test this, I put Charge on Will of the Sword Futsunushi. Then looked at a different Persona, Siegfried, with a completely separate trait.
Siegfried when using Brave Blade did 2705 damage normally. When I used Charge on Futsunushi, then switched to Siegfried to attack, the damage was 6665. The Charge multiplier here was ~2.5x, meaning Will of the Sword only works when it is on the attacker, not the buffing Persona.
That last thing is the weird bug with this trait. If you start a battle with a Will of the Sword Persona equipped, you will automatically have a free Concentrate on you. This was noted on the JP wiki as well. There’s nothing in the trait description that mentions this, so it can only be assumed to be a bug.
Do Striking Weight or Undying Fury affect Gun skills?
Striking Weight and Undying Fury increase the damage of Phys skills by 20% or 30%. Since Gun skills are affected by Charge, it might have been the case that they would be affected by these traits. But no, if you use a gun skill with either of these traits, an activation message doesn’t show up in-game and there isn’t a damage difference.
What are the best transferable damage boosting traits?
Since we now know that Pagan Allure cannot exceed the damage cap, and that Will of the Sword gives a 3x boost not a 7.5x one, we can get a better idea of what the best transferable damage raising traits are. For boss fights:
- On Phys attackers, it would be Undying Fury (Strengthens Phys attacks by 30%, Zaou-Gongen).
- On Gun attackers, it would be Will of the Sword (Futsunushi).
- On Magic attackers, it would be Mighty Gaze, Intense Focus or Will of the Sword. Mighty Gaze/Intense Focus always give you +20%, but you have to choose between single and multi-target skills. Will of the Sword’s 20% boost only comes when concentrated, but allows for any type of skill to get the damage boost.
Since bosses are generally not susceptible to ailments, weakness hits or criticals, the guaranteed flat damage boost from the above traits would be best for those. For common enemies or Velvet Room challenges, there are other options such as:
- Ailment Hunter: Raises damage dealt by 25% for each foe afflicted with an ailment
- Universal Law: Strengthens technical damage by 50% (Kohryu)
- Relentless: Strengthens attacks that strike foe weaknesses by 50% (this only works with single-target skills)
- Linked Bloodline: Greatly increases damage after a Baton Pass (Cybele, some testing shows this trait only affects single-target skills after a Baton Pass, and the boost is 40%)
How good is Country Maker?
One of the new DLC Personas, Izanagi-no-Okami, has an exclusive trait called Country Maker, which “Increases Attack/Defense based on Inmate Registry completion.” The question is, how much of a damage/defense buff does it give, when compendium completion is 100%? As of right now, I have 91% Compendium completion, but that should be enough to see how much of a benefit Country Maker gives.
For the Attack part, it can be tested by using a gun attack while Izanagi-nO is equipped, then equipping a different Persona with the same Str stat, doing the same attack and comparing the damage. A gun attack with Izanagi-nO equipped did 66 damage on avg, when equipping a different Persona, it did 34 damage on avg. This is a 1.94x damage boost, and considering I still have some space to fill in the compendium, it seems that Country Maker does indeed give a 100% damage boost to attacks at full capacity (and this can stack with other passives such as Boost/Amp/Magic Ability).
Defense can be looked at the same way. With Izanagi-nO equipped, Blazing Hell during a Velvet Room challenge did 50 damage on avg. Izanagi-nO has a resistance to fire and had the Firm Stance skill on him, so if neither of those were there, it would have done 200 damage.
On another Persona, with the same En stat but no Firm Stance and no resistance to fire, Blazing Hell did 360 damage on avg. So it seems Country Maker reduced damage taken here by 45% (1 - 200/360). Considering I currently have 91% compendium completion, it makes sense to draw the conclusion that Country Maker reduces damage taken by half when the compendium is fully completed.
So in conclusion, with full compendium, Country Maker doubles your damage and reduces damage taken by half.
Does Inviolable Beauty work with Repel Phys?
Kaguya naturally comes with a trait called Inviolable Beauty, whose description reads, “Triples damage dealt by Counter skills.” Because Kaguya learns both Counterstrike/High Counter and Repel Phys through level up, it was unclear whether Inviolable Beauty would work with Repel Phys, or if it only worked with designated ‘Counter’ skills.
Tested in the Velvet Room, Inviolable Beauty does in fact work with Repel Phys. Whether you reflect back damage using a counter skill or Repel Phys, it will do the same 3x damage back at the opponent.
What is the difference between Wealth of Lotus and Positive Thoughts?
Wealth of Lotus (Lakshmi) states it, “Increases effect period of support skills cast on allies by 2 turns”, while Positive Thoughts (Vohu Manah) states it, “Increases effect period of support skills cast on self by 2 turns.”
I tested both of these and found these results:
Wealth of Lotus
- Extends buffs cast by Joker on himself by 2 turns
- Extends buffs cast by Joker to other party members by 2 turns
- Works with Auto-Ma skills to extend them by 2 turns for whole party
Positive Thoughts
- Extends buffs cast by Joker on himself by 2 turns
- Extends buffs received to Joker from other party members by 2 turns
- Works with Auto-Ma skills to extend them by 2 turns for whole party
Positive Thoughts seems like it should not work with Auto-Ma skills, because it normally does not extend buffs to allies, but I tested it and it works. Dunno if that was intended, or if it is a bug.
Does the Omen trait boost the chances of Thanatos’ Door Of Hades?
Thanatos’ exclusive skill is Door of Hades, whose description reads, “Heavy Almighty damage to all foes with medium chance of instant death.” Sandalphon’s original trait is Omen, which “Greatly increases the chance of insta-kills.” It would be interesting to look at if Omen boosts Door of Hades’ instant death chances.
To test, I first used Door of Hades, with Thanatos’ original trait, on Nebiros in one of the Velvet Room challenges. Door of Hades resulted in an instant death 15/45 times (33%). I then re-fused Thanatos to put the Omen trait on him, and tested it out again with the new trait. Omen Door of Hades then resulted in an instant death 29/60 times (48%). Omen gave a ~1.5x boost to the chance of Door of Hades succeeding, so it’s definitely worth it to have on Thanatos.
One other thing that came out of this testing: the Alice in the Velvet Room challenge was programmed to block insta-deaths (Samsara was blocked on her). But both Nebiros and Belial could be taken out with Samsara, meaning they’re both vulnerable to insta-kills. However, during all the times I tried Door of Hades, it never worked on Belial. Then I saw later that Belial nulls curse skills. So from doing this, I think it confirms that Door of Hades deals Almighty damage, but it’s insta-death component is Curse-based. So perhaps Mudo Boost could also raise Door of Hades’ chances. And given that Nebiros resists curse, it’s likely that Omen Door of Hades has a higher chance rate than 48% against a curse neutral foe.
Would Foul Stench be useful with Raoul’s Phantom Show?
Since Raoul’s exclusive skill is Phantom Show (High odds of sleep to all foes), it makes sense to try and increase the chances of it connecting as much as possible. The Foul Stench trait and Ailment Boost skill have the same in-game description, “Increases chance of inflicting ailments.” I wondered if there would be any difference between having both of these on Raoul, versus only having one.
So I tested a Raoul with the Foul Stench trait + Ailment Boost skill, against one that only had Ailment Boost. With Foul Stench + Ailment Boost, Phantom Show connected 99/102 times (97%). With only Ailment Boost, Phantom Show actually connected more, 101/102 times (99%). Functionally the exact same hit rate, despite not having the Foul Stench trait. So it seems having both is not worth it if you are using Phantom Show, you can simply have Ailment Boost and choose another trait for Raoul.
If you are making a separate Ailment Persona, Foul Stench+Ailment Boost could be useful for skills like Evil Smile/Wage War/etc., which have medium odds instead of the high odds of Phantom Show.
