The best BOND skills in Persona 5 Strikers

Looking for a Persona 5 Strikers BOND guide? In your average Persona game, events unfold on a day-by-day basis, seeing your team defend this world from a threat called Shadows. You’d also be attending school, studying for exams, hanging out with friends, and building up your relationships and potential romances through Social Links.

Persona 5 had a similar system, but in that it's called Confidants instead. However, Persona 5 Strikers has you updating your skills with the Bond system. Here's how to get the most out of it, and choose the best Persona 5 Strikers BOND skills.

How the Persona 5 Strikers BOND system works

The BOND system is separate to EXP. Rather than get new abilities through ranking up with individual characters, you can pick and choose which BOND skills you’d like to have. These range from increasing your physical capabilities, strengthening Personas, and various support mechanics. 

Most skills can be increased repeatedly, up to a set level. Throughout Strikers, levelling up your BOND meter earns BOND points, which starts with a handful at a time. As your BOND level increases, the number of points gained rises with it. You’ve got 30 skills in total, though these aren’t all available at the outset. 

Many are unlocked upon meeting set conditions, like the completion of a request. Others are tied to story advancement and that criterion also applies to ranking up skills further, each capping out at different stages. 

Persona 5 Strikers BOND points: How to get them

BOND points are earned by progressing your BOND meter. The easiest way to that is defeat enemies in Jails, which can be visited at any time and don’t disappear like Palaces. Hitting story milestones also increases the BOND meter, alongside undertaking social events with other Phantom Thieves. Uniquely to Sendai, a Fortune Shrine is located near your campervan, which can be drawn from once per day for a small increase. Cooking recipes for the first time also adds to it. 

Finishing requests is a good method, too. This isn’t like Persona 5’s request system where they were only available within Mementos, these occur within Jails and the real world, too. Some requests are also repeatable for boosted rewards. Completing a request fills up the BOND meter and some can remove level caps on BOND skills.

Persona 5 Strikers BOND skills

Here’s a comprehensive list of what skills you can choose in Strikers:

Affects all party members

• Agility Boost: Affects crit rate and auto-evasion.
• Endurance Boost: Increases defence.
• HP Boost: Increases health points.
• Luck Boost: Affects crit evasion and status ailment rates. 
• Magic Boost: Affects magical attack damage.
• SP Boost: Increases stamina points.
• Strength Boost: Affects physical attack and gun damage.

Affects Persona abilities

• Martial Arts: Increases damage for physical skills.
• Spiritual Arts: Increases damage from magical skills.
• Supportive Arts: Increases duration for buffs and debuffs from skills.
• Tactical Arts: Increases chance for skills to inflict status ailments.

Affects your battle abilities

• Ambusher: Restores HP to all party members upon successfully ambushing Shadows.
• Ammo Hoarder: Increases ammo count for every party member, based on the gun type.
• Avenger: Evading enemy attacks can grant stronger counterattacks.
• Harisen Helper: Increases chance to trigger Harisen Recovery, letting allies cure a status ailment.
• Oracle Recovery: Restores HP and SP to all party members at the end of battle.
• Pass Appeal: Fills your Showtime gauge faster when switching between active party members.
• Phantom Striker: Increased damage when performing a phantom dash.
• Proper Showman: Increases damage for Showtime attacks.
• Spirit Striker: '1 More' attacks restore individual SP and All-Out Attacks restore party SP.

Other

• Bondmake: Your BOND level increases faster.
• Extortionist: Increases money gained after completing a battle.
• Highwayman: Increased chance to obtain items upon completing a battle.
• Joker’s Wild: Increased chance for Persona masks to manifest.
• Master Chef: Allows you to create food with stronger effects.
• Metaverse Medic: Healing items have increased potency.
• Packrat: Junk parts become easier to obtain.
• Safecracker: Allows more difficult treasure chests to be picked open.
• Smart Shopper: Obtain better deals at Sophia’s Shop.
• Treasure Hunter: Increased chance to encounter Treasure Demons.

The best BOND skills

For more efficient use of BOND points, Bondmaker should be your first choice. You can’t boost it beyond Rank 2 for a while, so skills for farming currency (Treasure Hunter and Extortionist) are your next best choices, once unlocked. Sophia’s shop provides new weapons, armour, and accessories. the thing is they're not cheap, especially if you rotate the party regularly. However, you can minimise shopping costs with Smart Shopper, which places set items on sale. 

For direct combat, that really depends on what you’re looking to prioritise. If you’re after new Persona 5 Strikers Personas without fusing existing ones, Joker’s Wild is recommended. Pass Appeal and Proper Showman are also good choices, since it takes a significant amount of time to fully charge your Showtime gauge.

For improved support, Oracle Recovery is a must have, but that costs 15 BOND points for Rank 1, which takes time to amass. Further ranks only get more expensive, too. SP healing items are rather uncommon, so SP Boost goes a long way to making stamina last. To get effective use out of healing items, I’d also recommend Metaverse Medic.