History GameBreaker / Persona

** Crystal Skull, the final treasure demon, can be itemised into an accessory of the same name which grants +5 to all combat stats, on top of a large boost to evasion against magical skills. While it is only available when TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon manifests itself, it isn't too difficult to make enough for everyone on the team (provided you collected enough black rocks), making it much more difficult for enemies to exploit their elemental weaknesses. The only drawback here is that it competes with the SP Adhesives for

* [[DangerousForbiddenTechnique Shura Tensei]], a buff skill that returns from the previous ''Persona Q'' game, remains incredibly broken. At the cost of half of a character's maximum natural HP after each attack (which can easily be recovered with Navi skills), their damage output is ''tripled''. Firing off Links, or boosted physical attacks, in this state all but guarantees a win against the majority of enemies and [=FOEs=] in the game. It's disliked among many players because of how extreme the move is, both in risk and reward.
* Aigis is just as broken as she is in the first game with her Orgia Mode. Give her Yoshitsune and unleash a Boosted Hassou Tobi under Orgia Mode after using Power Charge, especially with Heat Riser in effect on her and Debilitate on the enemy, and she can easily start dishing out a total of 15,000+ damage per set.

** Confusion prevents the enemy from being able to dodge or use skills as they randomly attack themselves or their allies.

* The MissionControl characters TookALevelInBadass upon coming to the Margin World, thanks to the Sub-Persona system. Unlike the combatant characters (who rely on a limited pool of SP to use magic), Fuuka and Rise instead rely on the regenerating "Leader" gauge that builds as you fight shadows. This makes Fuuka one of the most efficient healers in the game, as she can grant the party three turns of recurring healing for only 1/5th of the gauge. Equip her with a Sub-Persona like Kaguya and she easily outshines dedicated healers like Yukiko, Yukari, and Rei. This didn't go unnoticed -- Fuuka's Healing Wave makes a return in the second game, but has its cost tripled to make the regeneration less spammable.
* Physically-oriented characters like Kanji, Chie, Aigis, Shinjiro, and Akihiko are highly valued because of the fact that most of their abilities are CastFromHitPoints which are easily replenished, both thanks to Fuuka's healing and the HP/SP buffer given by Sub-Personas that's replenished after every battle. One of the most popular strategies involves equipping one of these characters with a Sub-Persona that has several of the various "Link" skills equipped, which allow them to add bonus elemental damage to every allied attack that comes after them. Kanji is a popular choice for this, as he has the highest natural strength score and naturally learns abilities that allow him to go first in battle, allowing him to maximize link damage. Junpei has less Strength, but has the Golden Gemini skill upon getting his ultimate Persona, which gives him a ''very'' high chance of executing ''any'' physical skill twice in a row (and the second is free). This includes Hassou Tobi.

* Speaking of heavy damage dealers and boss killers, Aigis' Orgia Mode when it comes to facing bosses and/or F.O.Es. A damage multiplier for only two turns doesn't sound impressive, ''on its own''. However, the thing that makes it so unfair to bosses is that it doesn't take up a buff slot[[labelnote:*]]Only three buffs and debuffs can be applied to a unit during battle, with newer ones overriding older ones[[/labelnote]], meaning you can have that, Shura Tensei[[labelnote:*]]Greatly multiplies damage in exchange for losing half of your max health every turn unless canceled by Shura Revert or getting KOed, and ''it doesn't take up a buff slot either!''[[/labelnote]], Heat Riser, Matarukaja AND Power Charge active for an even more powerful multi-hitting attack such as Danse Macabre on a thoroughly debuffed and preferably agility-bound enemy. Alternatively, having Rise as your battle navigator can turn that particular combination of Aigis into one of the best Linkers due to Spotlight, and with the right passive skills, every successful follow-up attack will deal damage in the '''thousands'''.
** In fact, you may not even need Rise for that strategy. Giving Aigis Dragon Cry will not only grant her both the first hit, but also one of the biggest damage buffs in the game[[labelnote:*]]only outclassed by Power Charge and Shura Tensei, which you can ''stack this with''[[/labelnote]].

* Yoshitsune, as usual, with his broken Hassou Tobi skill. Although he no longer innately learns any passive skills that augment it, he now learns Heat Riser and Charge to jack up the numbers.
* Not only does Danse Macabre return (albeit stuck to a mid-tier Sub-Persona), there are several new skills that can hit an absurd number of times. Aeon Rain, the strongest of them, hits anywhere between 3 to '''10''' times, and if the player's lucky, it can outdamage Hassou Tobi. The most valuable part of these skills is the raised opportunities to land critical hits, granting an easy Boost which will strengthen the next instance of that attack.

* Likewise, Heat Riser, mentioned earlier, is, in Persona Q at least, exclusive ONLY to the ultimate Persona of the P4 Hero, Izanagi-no-Okami, and is a key component of many of the other game-breaking strategies in the game (like the aforementioned combination with Aigis' Orgia Mode) being the best buffing skill in the game (It's the buff equivalent to Debilitate). Compounding onto this is that Izanagi-no-Okami has the best overall resistance spread of any Persona, with the only element aside from Almighty that Izanagi-no-Okami does not resist or better being Light (It's immune to Dark and resists everything else), and it's only neutral to that, meaning that, by default, the P4 Hero has no weaknesses once he gets his ultimate Persona, and only one attack type that is neutral to him. In contrast, almost every other Main Persona, even Ultimate Personas, have at least one weakness, with only Naoto's being without a weakness (however, Yamato-Takeru only resists Fire and is immune to Light and Dark, so its resistances are nowhere near as plentiful as Izanagi-no-Okami's). If one can give the P4 Hero a Sub-Persona that patches up their lack of resistance to Light, then he can become far and away the overall most reliable tank (other characters can be considered to have greater bulk, but they have weaknesses that can be exploited, and have nowhere near as many resistances) of the team. Combine that with the fact that he's the only character to get access Heat Riser and... yeah. The P4 Hero is viable to be called the overall most powerful character in Persona Q (discounting Instant-kill abuse from Naoto, Teddie or Ken, that is). It also helps that a few powerful endgame Personas like Lucifer, Helel, Trumpeter or, if you're using paid DLC, Magatsu-Izanagi, all learn Resist Light, which, if equipped to the P4 Hero, will let him resist ''every single non-Almighty attack in the game.''

* Not only does Danse Macabre return (albeit stuck to a mid-tier Sub-Persona), there are several new skills that can hit an absurd number of times. Aeon Rain, the strongest of them, hits anywhere between 3 to '''10''' times, and if the player's lucky, it can outdamage Hassou Tobi.
* Link skills can be extremely broken in this game, since it allows infinite loop attacks that can reduce around 50% to 60% of an F.O.E or even a stage boss' HP in a turn. The [=P3P=] Heroine is incredibly strong in this regard as she innately learns a Link skill and all the relevant passives, including a unique skill causes Links to hit harder with each follow-up. There are other party members with similar Link specialization like Koromaru, Ken, and Chie, but none have their kit as well-optimized as hers.

* Poison and Panic deal severe damage against several major early game bosses or F.O.Es and can nearly cripple them. They even work against Kamoshidaman and all four enemies in the Yosukesaurus fight, greatly smoothing progress. When dealing with enemies that have an Affinity Barrier that makes them resist all damage, poison can put a lot of bonus damage on them and work towards breaking the barrier open.

* Did you dislike the fact that magic wasn't viable in ''Persona Q''? [=P3MC=]'s unique passive ability, Fool Card, gives a 1.5x boost to all magic damage except Bless and Curse. To put it into perspective, this is the equivalent of six "Element Turbo" passives (all of which are inaccessible until [[PostEndGameContent levels well above what you're expected to be at for the endgame]]) in ''one slot''. His endgame upgrade, Judgment Card, shoots this up to '''1.85x'''. They made his Magic extremely low to try to balance this out, but he still outdamages specialists with far higher Magic than him. Aside from that, his Luck is still excellent, and his Strength and Endurance aren't half bad either, ''and'' he gets first dibs on Heat Riser. He can pretty much do anything you want him to.

* The MissionControl characters TookALevelInBadass upon coming to the Margin World, thanks to the Sub-Persona system. Unlike the combatant characters (who rely on a limited pool of SP to use magic), Fuuka and Rise instead rely on the regenerating "Leader" gauge that builds as you fight shadows. This makes Fuuka one of the most efficient healers in the game, as she can grant the party three turns of recurring healing for only 1/5th of the gauge. Equip her with a Sub-Persona like Kaguya and she easily outshines dedicated healers like Yukiko, Yukari, and Rei.

* Yoshitsune returns from ''Persona 4'' as a sub-Persona, retaining his signature overpowered Hassou Tobi attack, which now has increased base damage in exchange for now distributing 8 hits across all enemies randomly. Against single targets, all eight hits will converge on that one target. While Yoshitsune doesn't learn any other attack skills, he doesn't need them - every other skill he naturally learns is a passive that makes Hassou Tobi ''even stronger''. [[note]]God's Cut passively raises cut damage, Warrior Title raises critical rate and nearly guarantees the user Boost for their next turn, First Star amplifies the damage if the user attacks before all other enemies (which can produce incredible results with Bestial Roar or Dragon Cry), and Heroic Gemini gives a chance of Hassou Tobi ''firing off twice in a turn''.[[/note]] Add in the fact that no enemy in this game is immune to any element that isn't Light or Dark, and Hassou Tobi can decimate anything in the game, Almighty attacks be damned.

* The DLC Personas in general can fall under under this with a touch of BribingYourWayToVictory. Each of them can be summoned from the Compendium for free once, meaning you can tear apart the early and mid game Palaces, along with {{That One Boss}}es like Shadow Madarame, with several of the higher leveled ones until the rest of the game catches up to them. Even among them however, a few stand out in terms of gamebreaking goodness.

* Most DLC Personas can be classified as such, since they learn ''extremely'' powerful skills at a really early level, and can be summoned for free for the first time. Then again, [[BribingYourWayToVictory they do cost real money to acquire]].

* Link skills can be extremely broken in this game, since it allows infinite loop attacks that can reduce around 50% to 60% of an F.O.E or even a stage boss' HP in a turn. The P3 Female MC is incredibly strong in this regard as she innately learns a Link skill and all the relevant passives, including a unique skill causes Links to hit harder with each follow-up. There are other party members with similar Link specialization like Koromaru, Ken, and Chie, but none have their kit as well-optimized as hers.
* Agility binds work on nearly all major bosses and F.O.Es and can make some really dangerous bosses almost laughable when their ability to land a hit or dodge is reduced to near-nothing.
* Poison and Panic deal severe damage against several major early game bosses or F.O.Es and can nearly cripple them. They even work against Kamoshidaman and all four enemies in the Yosukesaurus fight, greatly smoothing progress.
* Most DLC Personas fall in this way, since they learn ''extremely'' powerful skills at a really early level.

* Mementos is affected by the weather in reality. When a Heat Wave turns up, there's a chance Shadows will automatically be hit with "Burn"; in Pollen Season, it's "Sleep". But for three days in November and two in December, Flu Season arrives, which has a chance to inflict "Despair", which will automatically kill any enemy in three turns and prevent them from acting. The game-breaking comes from the fact that this includes [[BonusBoss The Reaper]], who does not have ContractualBossImmunity to the flu. Defeating The Reaper pays out a hefty 72,000+ EXP every time, no matter how many times you do it. Given that level 50 is around the average level the player should be at in November, it's possible to hit the level cap for every party member in around two hours, resulting in every party member gaining their strongest skills that would usually take tens of hours of grinding to achieve. Doing this can turn the whole endgame into a cakewalk, including turning the FinalBoss into an absolute joke who can be taken down in as little as four turns. [[note]]It's recommended that you rank up the Star Confidant to Rank 9 to be able to escape on your first turn in case the Reaper doesn't have Despair and you're not prepared to fight him.[[/note]]

* Chihaya has two great skills that, while expensive to use, save a lot of time.
** Chihaya's Rank 1 boosts the total points earned on a social stat of your choice for the day for every activity done after receiving the reading. While this ability does involve some planning and foresight, it can be obtained early on in the game and paired with activities that greatly boost stats like taking a bath, watching a movie, feeding the plant, etc. it can allow social stats to be maxed earlier, and right before you encounter confidants with the Level 5 social stat blocks.
** Chihaya's Rank 7 ability is the use of the shrine without wasting time; you can significantly speed up bonding with your teammates with none of the time wasted. Play your cards correctly and you can eliminate holdover periods, like with Sojiro's notoriously slow Confidant.

** Chihaya has two great skills that, while expensive to use, save a lot of time.
* Chihaya's Rank 1 boosts the total points earned on a social stat of your choice for the day for every activity done after receiving the reading. While this ability does involve some planning and foresight, it can be obtained early on in the game and paired with activities that greatly boost stats like taking a bath, watching a movie, feeding the plant, etc. it can allow social stats to be maxed earlier, and right before you encounter confidants with the Level 5 social stat blocks.
* Chihaya's Rank 7 ability is the use of the shrine without wasting time; you can significantly speed up bonding with your teammates with none of the time wasted. Play your cards correctly and you can eliminate holdover periods, like with Sojiro's notoriously slow Confidant.

** Chihaya's Rank 7 ability is the use of the shrine without wasting time; you can significantly speed up bonding with your teammates with none of the time wasted. Play your cards correctly and you can eliminate holdover periods, like with Sojiro's notoriously slow Confidant.

* Lucifer comes very close; he has 999 or 99 in all stats, some of the strongest Dark skills, is immune to everything, and has the strongest earth skill. However, he is completely useless against dark demons as he has no light skills, so anything that reflects light will kill his host (always Reiji/Chris). Instead, the real GameBreaker is Vohu Manah; it has the strongest light skills, the strongest healing skill, and the final boss killer Hieroglyphein. That's not the best part, however; the real fun is Binal Strike, which does damage equal to twice the user's HP. If your level is high enough to summon Vohu Manah, your HP will be so high that nothing will be able to stand up to Binal Strike. But you need revive magic, of course, which costs a lot of MP... actually, that's not an issue for two reasons. First, MP cost is calculated by the Persona, not the skill, and skills can be added to a Persona that doesn't learn them naturally, meaning you can abuse the system and, in theory, get a Persona with a single-digit MP cost that has Samarecarm. Second, dead characters are revived with 1HP after the battle ends, meaning that all that's needed is healing and, if you're able to summon Vohu Manah, you've probably found enough Spell Cards and got a high enough level that you have something with Mediarahan (possibly for a low MP cost, as previously stated). By the way, Abracab himself has Mediarahan, and since the dead character will be revived, he or she can then use Mediarahan on him or herself, making Vohu Manah 100% ridiculous. The catch, of course, is that Vohu Manah requires certain demons be fused with his totem, and by the time you are high enough level to fuse him, nothing in the game is a threat anyway.
* Gozu-Tennoh. A [[GlassCannon Chariot Arcana]] starting with only Squash and Poison Sting, it's not able to attack well except when it ranks up to 3 when it learns ''[[ILoveNuclearPower Me]][[DiscOneNuke gi]][[TotalPartyKill do]]'', as long as the enemy doesn't [[NoSell block or reflect Nuclear]] it's not hard to wipe the entire enemy. Keep using him and he learns ''[[UpToEleven Megidola]]'', the 2nd tier in [[NonElemental Almighty]]. Slap it on to [[CantCatchUp Mark]] and it's possible to have him surpass the party in levels. When he max ranks and is too frail to continue, return him and you get a [[GravityMaster Grydyne Stone]].

* Yoshitsune is the best physical attacker in the game because of his Hassou Tobi attack. Eight separate hits, though with light damage, casually offset single hit severe damage like Primal Force. And it hits all targets to boot. Power Charged Hassou Tobi DOUBLES the damage output of a Power Charged Primal Force, the second-strongest physical attack in the game. Not to mention no weaknesses, and Yoshitsune is one of the most customizable Persona in the game (he only needs Power Charge and Hassou Tobi, and you can technically get Power Charge off of a slave), meaning you can have a semi-invincible god slaughtering the field. Also, he has Heat Riser, which is essentially the combination of all three buff spells, and when fused on a certain date, he can also learn Debilitate, which is a combination of all three debuff spells. Combine it with the aforementioned Power Charge and Hassou Tobi and you will have a combo that could defeat Death with at least two usage of it.
** Beelzebub in ''Persona 4'' is the ultimate tank Persona. It's trivially easy to get him immunity or better to every element in the game, meaning the only thing that can touch you is Almighty and certain ailments. Metatron can do the same thing as Beelzebub but is a little bit harder to pull off.

* Norn is this if you're willing to invest in a little SaveScumming. Having [[StatusBuff Status Buffs]] on ''your entire party'' at the beginning of a fight is pretty good so that you can do a lot of damage right off the bat. If you can also get her Repel Elec and level her up till she gets Debilitate, you pretty much have a good starting Persona for boss fights (though you could still just use Trumpeter for the Debilitate part).

* SP being essentially the equivalent of magic, it can be used to heal your fighters and effectively counter enemies. Thus, because [[MagicIsRareHealthIsCheap it cannot be as easily recovered as HP]], the drain on your SP often limits the amount of time you can spend crawling dungeons. However, with the SP Adhesive Bandage (available at Takemi's Confidant Rank 5), you can recover SP every turn in a battle, up to 7 at rank 3. That means if you purchase a bandage for every member of your party, while notably expensive (to the tune of at least 240,000 yen), it makes it so you can effectively traverse an entire dungeon in one calendar day, which is infinitely important in a game where time is as important as in Persona 5. Get Takemi's Confidant to Rank 7, and everything she sells is offered at half price, making it incredibly easy to fit the party with the adhesive.

** Crystal Skull, the final treasure demon, can be itemised into an accessory of the same name which grants +5 to all combat stats, on top of a large boost to evasion against magical skills. While it is only available when TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon manifests itself, it isn't too difficult to make enough for everyone on the team (provided you collected enough black rocks), making it much more difficult for enemies to exploit their elemental weaknesses.

* NewGamePlus is rather obvious as a GameBreaker, but worth listing here for convenience sake. Each New Game Plus allows you to carry over the Person Compendium, items you collected, money you earned, social stats you've increased, and social link key items you unlocked for fusing Persona. Add all these together, and getting HundredPercentCompletion on those Social Links becomes much easier now that you can just summon your best endgame Persona to sweep the early-mid game while focusing on non-combat matters. ''Persona 3'' had it best, allowing you to retain your level from last playthrough as well. Level determines how much damage you take from enemies alongside the stats of your Persona, so ''Persona 3'' lets you sleepwalk New Game Plus easier than later entries.

* Unlike the previous game, you do not keep your level or stats on NewGamePlus. Since you have low SP, summoning late-game Personas with high level spells becomes impractical. However, physical based Personas are fair game, because physical attacks are percentage based, rather than having a fixed cost. If you have Arms Master, then severe physical attacks would now cost ''only around 18 HP''; all physical attack Personas practically become Game Breakers for a third or half of the game! Bonus points if the Persona you're using is the above mentioned Yoshitsune. Oh yeah, and if the Persona nulls or even returns physical damage, it would make [[ThatOneBoss Shadow Kanji]] a [[CurbstompBattle complete joke.]]

* All of your endgame-tier weapons and armor carry over in a NewGamePlus, and there's nothing preventing you from using them right off the bat. This means that, for at least the first few dungeons, your melee attacks will be insanely powerful, doing far more damage than your skills, allowing you to breeze through those dungeons in just a couple of days since SP is typically your limiting factor in how much you can explore a dungeon in a single day. Weapons are by far one of your biggest expenses in the game, so having all of your weapons carry over will also help you save up lots more money during your second playthrough.

** Izanagi-No-Okami from ''Persona 5 Royal'' manages to stand heads and shoulders above the rest. His SecretArt deals 3x Heavy Almighty Damage to all foes, making it the strongest Almighty attack in the game. While it costs 40 Sp to cast, Okami can refund it after battle thanks to the Victory Cry skill he ''starts with'''. Okami naturally resists all elements except Light and Dark, making it trivially easy to fuse him into NighInvulnerability. Finally, Okami's Act of Creation trait raises attack and defense based on amount of Personas registered. Players with near or complete Persona Compendiums will truly feel like a God among men using this Persona.

* In ''Royal,'' Izanagi-no-Okami and a Picaro version are both available as DLC and come with Myriad Truths, which amounts to a three-hit Megidola that will obliterate virtually anything you point it at short of a boss. And after being backed up by a Concentrate boost, entire boss phases can be taken down in one attack.

* Yoshitsune, as usual, with his broken Hassou Tobi skill. Although he no longer innately learns any passive skills that augment it, Hassou Tobi now gets a damage bonus when used during Boost, which is easily achieved with the assistance of True Critical Eye. The Sub-Personal also learns Heat Riser and Charge to jack up the numbers, too.

* Yoshitsune, as usual.
* Link skills can be extremely broken in this game, since it allows infinite loop attacks that can reduce around 50% to 60% of an F.O.E or even a stage boss' HP in a turn.
* Agility binds work on nearly all major bosses and F.O.Es and can easily turn some really dangerous bosses to almost laughable.

** In a game where time is scarce, Kawakami's Confidant abilities are the most valuable, giving the player additional time slots for certain activities or letting her take over time-consuming chores so the player can do other nighttime activities. Her biggest boon is her special massage service, which lets the protagonist do a nighttime activity after a day in the Metaverse, making a Palace or Mementos trip less of a time investment. This last boon is only given by maxing her Confidant, but it carries on a NewGamePlus and you get to use it to its fullest extent.

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* The level up trick with the [[FanNickname Mr. Pringles]] (King-type enemies that [[MookMaker can summon other Shadows infinitely]]) is also a good way to have a high level. While unfortunately, there's a cap for EXP, there's none for cash. If you have a Phys-Null (or Reflect) Persona on your main character, just let it summon its mooks, turn on Rush Mode overnight and wake up with a lot of exp (at 65k normally, 130k with both equipment pieces (each increasing your exp by 50%)) ''and a million worth of cash'' that you could use on a NewGamePlus (you know, to summon your broken personae listed above). Though as for the [[GuideDangIt two equipment pieces...]]

* Trumpeter, on the other hand, starts off immune to Dark, reflecting Light and Electricity, and absorbing Ice. As a Hexagon fusion, it is moderately easy to get the other three immunities, giving you a person immune to everything except Almighty and Poison. On top of that, Trumpeter gets the best buff and debuff spells and the strongest non-unique Almighty spell automatically. And you can get Spell Master on it for spamming Megidolaons all day (use Skadi to fuse Daisoujou, one of the components for Trumpeter - incidentally Daisoujou with Spell Master borders on a GameBreaker by itself, as this makes its Light-based unique skill Samsara spammable and with Hama Boost Samsara has about 99% chance of instakilling anything not resistant to Light, while useless against bosses this allows to easily and MP-efficiently clear lots of normally-annoying encounters). Unlike Lucifer and Yoshitsune, which require some dedicated grinding, Trumpeter is fuseable at about the level you'll either naturally be or are recommended to grind to (depending on difficulty-based EXP gains) before the final run of the Normal ending.

* One broken spell combo is "Trimurti" by the personas Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma. It will KO all non-boss enemies. It is more broken since these three can be obtain far earlier than Lucifer and Satan and do not require the insane MP consumptions. This only applies to ''Innocent Sin'' since it was {{nerf}}ed in ''Eternal Punishment''.