Justine and Caroline certainly put Joker through his paces during his imprisonment in the Velvet Room. Among their demands are specific personas to be fused with certain skills. This isn’t always straightforward, but performing these tasks is key to boosting the Strength confidant.
The good thing about the Strength confidant is that increasing its ranks doesn’t take up any precious time in the calendar. You can also tackle this pretty late in the game and completely max the confidant in one go. From a certain point, every Persona you need to fuse will be within Mementos, and many of them will likely be in your compendium.
Here’s a full Persona 5 Royal Strength confidant guide which will show how to max the Strength confidant, as well as everything else you need to know.
- RELATED: Persona 5 Royal Review
How to unlock the Strength confidant
The Strength confidant is unlocked automatically on 5/18, when the twins start providing Joker with fusion requests. At any point, you can simply return to the Velvet Room via Shibuya, Shinjuku, Kichijoji, Akihabara, Mementos or a palace entrance to continue levelling up the Strength confidant.
However, the personas necessary to max the Strength confidant will not be available until you sufficiently progress the story, and generally you’ll be able to increase a couple of levels per palace.
What are the rewards for the Strength confidant?
As with every confidant Arcana, each completed fusion request increases the EXP bonus when fusing a persona of the Strength Arcana. The additional bespoke rewards of the confidant are as follows:
Rank 1 – Group Guillotine
This is unlocked automatically and allows three personas to be fused together, increasing the number of potential personas. Generally fusing three personas will result in a higher-level persona than fusing two.
Rank 3 – Lockdown
Next is the ability to temporarily place a Persona in lockdown in order for it to gain resistances. I found this more useful towards the end of the game, when you are starting to finalise your team of personas. In the early days, personas come and go quickly so it’s best not to get attached to each one.
Rank 5 – Special Treatment
This is an important rank to reach, allowing you to fuse personas higher than your current level… for a price. It can be frustrating to see a great persona on offer a level or two above you, so this will finally alleviate this issue.
Rank 8 – Guillotine Booster
At this rank, you’ll now be allowed to fuse four personas together. This is simply an extension of the Group Guillotine, and is actually a good way of getting rid of some of the low-level personas you end up grabbing. Again, this will generally result in a higher level persona than lesser fusions.
Rank 10 (max) – VIP Treatment
This isn’t anything groundbreaking and simply reduces the cost of Special Treatment. It’s handy, but not game-changing at the point you unlock it.
However, you’ll now be able to fuse Zaou-Gongen, the ultimate persona of the Strength confidant.
Important tips to max the Strength confidant in Persona 5 Royal
One change made by Persona 5 Royal was the introduction of the fusion alarm, which can be both a blessing and a curse. This can turn up unexpected results that throw your fusions off, so the first tip is to NEVER try and fuse the required Persona during a fusion alarm. These expire quickly so just ride it out and get back to business.
Secondly, some Personas used for fusion will not learn the necessary skills until they reach a certain level. I’ll point these out at the relevant points during the guide, where you should use the Gallows sacrifice to boost their level if you have spare personas – alternatively you’ll have to grind them up.
Finally, when you are fusing the necessary personas – check your compendium first. This is pretty obvious, but you’ll save time without having to search for them in Mementos. Speaking of the compendium, if you intend to replay in a New Game+, it’s advisable to register the personas that have the necessary skills in your compendium. This carries over, so you can easily max the Strength confidant again the next time around.
Do you need to hang out with Justine and Caroline?
No. The hangout opportunities that arise are not actually necessary to level up the Strength confidant at any point. The only rewards you’ll get are some skill cards, albeit some decent ones that occasionally help with the fusion requests.
These events take up precious time that could be spent improving social stats or boosting your other confidants. Whilst these are funny, entertaining scenes, in my humble opinion the rewards are not worth the time and effort.
All you’ll get for your troubles are some skill cards, and eventually a final scene. Don’t worry, this isn’t required either. In my opinion these are probably only worth doing on a New Game+ run.
You also don’t get any benefit from equipping a persona from the Strength Arcana whilst you increase the confidant level.
How to max the Strength confidant in Persona 5 Royal
Now the difficult part – here’s a breakdown of every persona and skill you need, as well as the best way to get it.
Strength Confidant Rank 1 – Jack Frost with Mabufu
Jack Frost can be fused with Kelpie and Succubus or with Silky and Berith. He learns Mabufu at level 12. However, you don’t necessarily need to perform a fusion here as you can acquire Jack Frost on his own. He’s in Madarame’s Palace or Path of Chemdah within Mementos.
Strength Confidant Rank 2 – Ame-No-Uzume with Frei
Fuse Suzaku with Berith. Suzaku has Frei so this can be inherited by Ame-No-Uzume.
Alternatively, you can itemise the Makami persona to get a Frei skill card, and fuse Cait Sith with Succubus. The first option is easier, but if you don’t have those personas available then it is another option.
Strength Confidant Rank 3 – Flauros with Tarukaja
This will require a three-way fusion of Berith, Orobas and Eligor. Eligor will be the persona who has the Tarukaja skill, which is learnt at level 16 so make sure he has it before going ahead with the Group Guillotine.
Strength Confidant Rank 4 – Phoenix with Counter
The quickest way to get a Phoenix with Counter is to fuse Yaksini with Kelpie. However, you may have to fuse Yaksini first which is done by combining Hua Po with Jack o’Lantern.
Strength Confidant Rank 5 – Setanta with Rakukaja
This is another pretty simply one. Fuse Silky with Lamia to gain Setanta with Rakukaja.
Strength Confidant Rank 6 – Neko Shogun with Dekaja
You’ll need Anzu to learn Dekaja first, which is learnt at level 28. Once this is done, fuse Anzu, Kodama and Sudama with a Group Guillotine, and inherit Dekaja.
The other option is to fuse Orobas with High Pixie to create a Sudama that has Dekaja. You will still need to fuse Anzu, Kodama and Sudama – the only benefit of this option is that you won’t have to level up Anzu.
Strength Confidant Rank 7 – Lachesis with Tetraja
There are a few steps here. The Principality persona will have Tetraja at level 29. Fuse him with Sandman to create Thoth, who will need to inherit the Tetraja skill. Then fuse Thoth with Anzu, and once again pass on the Tetraja skill to Lachesis.
Strength Confidant Rank 8 – Hecatoncheires with Masukunda
You must fuse Lilim with Anzu, but Lilim does not learn Masukunda until level 34. Make sure you level them up with grinding or a sacrifice first before performing the fusion.
Strength Confidant Rank 9 – Bugs with Samarecarm
This Persona is created with a Group Guillotine of Hariti, Pixie and Pisaca. However, you’ll need Hariti to reach level 41 in order to learn Samarecarm.
You can get a Samarecarm skill card from the Twins if you reach the fourth special outing with them at the Church in Kanda. However, it’s no big deal if you aren’t keeping up with these and this just saves you from levelling up Hariti.
Strength Confidant Rank 10 – Seth with High Counter
There are a few options here. The simplest is probably to get Dakini to level 52 to learn High Counter, then fuse it with Ame-no-Uzume to get an Anubis with High Counter. Then fuse Anubis with Horus, Isis and Thoth with the Group Guillotine to receive a Seth than inherits High Counter.
If you don’t want to level up Dakini, you may actually end up with the High Counter skill card anyway if you are keeping on top of your Mementos quests. This is the reward for the mission “The Killer Who Takes Out The Trash” which is rank B and available from 10/14. You also get a High Counter skill card for the eleventh (!) hangout with the twins, which can be accessed from 11/25. You’ll still need to do the Group Guillotine fusion.
That’s everything you need to know to max the Strength confidant in Persona 5 Royal, which will unlock the possibility of fusing Zaou-Gongen.
Can you complete the Strength Confidant in one go?
Speaking from experience, yes you can. Even if you completely neglect the twins for much of the game, you can basically complete this in one fell swoop once enough of Mementos is unlocked. You can do this after beating Okumura’s palace, but given the requirements it may be better to wait until after clearing Sae’s (casino) palace. Everything you need can then be sourced within Mementos. Any time around October onwards should be fine. This ties in with the Mementos mission to earn the High Counter skill card.
By now, if you’ve got some SP accessories and Ryuji’s confidant up to level 7 for the Insta-kill ability, so you should be self-sufficient within Mementos and won’t have to waste a day by leaving to recover.
Justine and Caroline Hangout events
If you like the twins so much you don’t want to miss out on these events, then here’s a breakdown of all possible hangout events with their availability criteria and rewards.
These are all available until 12/19, unless otherwise stated. Each event is only unlocked after completing the previous ones, and some of these events are time-sensitive and missable. However, you don’t actually need to complete the missable events to unlock the special final event.
Hangout 1 – Big Bang Burger
Available: 6/6 to 12/19
Reward: Maragi and Mabufu skill cards
Hangout 2 – Movie Theater
Available: 6/7 to 12/19
Reward: Frei and Psy skill cards
This will only be available if you have been to the movies yourself at least once. This shouldn’t be a problem at this point though.
Hangout 3 – Protein Lovers Gym
Available: 6/15 to 12/19
Reward: Apt Pupil and Counter skill cards
Like the Movie Theater, you’ll only be able to complete this event once you’ve visited the gym yourself.
Hangout 4 – Kanda Church
Available: 6/25 to 12/19
Reward: Samarecarm skill card
Hangout 5 – Aquarium (Shinagawa)
Available: 7/26 to 12/19
Reward: Masakukaja and Masukunda skill cards
You’ll have to unlock the Aquarium by reading the ‘Aquarium-a-Day’ book which can be bought in Shinjuku. Alternatively, Akechi can invite you there which will unlock this as well.
Hangout 6 – Skytree (Asakusa)
Available: 7/27 to 12/19
Reward: Tarukaja, Rakukaja, and Sukukaja skill cards
This is unlocked during the Star or Lovers confidant at ranks 6 and 7 respectively. These are pretty popular confidants so I’m sure you’ll have made it by now!
Hangout 7 – Miura Beach
Available: 9/2 to 9/29 – missable
Reward: Growth 2 skill card
This is the first time-sensitive event, which is only available during day time.
Hangout 8 – Maid Cafe
Available: 9/19 to 12/19
Reward: Tetraja, Dekunda, and Dekaja skill cards
Like the Movie Theater and the Gym, you have to visit the Maid Café yourself before taking Justine and Caroline there.
Hangout 9 – Destiny Land
Available: 10/1 to 12/19
Reward: Tetrakarn skill card
This hangout can’t be done on rainy days. This is unlocked on 10/11 automatically. There’s a book you can read to unlock it sooner, but this is a waste of time – you may as well wait a few more days.
Hangout 10 – Museum
Available: 10/1 to 11/3 – missable
Reward: Regenerate 3 skill card
Hangout 11 – LeBlanc Cafe
Available From: 11/15 to 12/19
Reward: High Counter skill card
Hangout 12 – Underground Mall
Available From: 12/1 to 12/9 – missable
Reward: Heat Riser skill card
Final Hangout
Available: 1/13
Reward: Enduring Soul skill card
This one’s a bit different – but all you need to know is that you must have completed all above events before 12/19, but you don’t need to have completed the missable events, so don’t worry if they passed you by.
Conclusion
The Strength confidant is unique, and whilst it doesn’t take up time in Joker’s calendar it is still one of the hardest to max.
Hopefully, the above guide will help you reach level 10 as easily as possible, in order to tick another confidant off the list.
Check out some of our other Persona 5 Royal tips below to help you for the rest of the game:
