A big component of the Persona 5 game is maintaining your relationships with the Confidants. These Confidants provide quests for important rewards and story progress, useful bonuses in and out of battle, and are the lifeblood for the player’s Personas.
It’s important to appease multiple Confidants in order to progress through the game, but not all Confidants are created equal, and, while some are immensely helpful, others are less so. So here’s a ranking of all the Confidants based on how useful they are to the player’s efforts both in and out of battle.
21 Judgement
Out of all the Confidants, Sae Nijima, or the Judgement Confidant, is perhaps the least helpful. She offers no bonuses or perks until near the end of the game when players receive True Justice, which provides an experience bonus when fusing any of her Personas. Granted she’ll max out if players pursue the good ending, but it’s a minor perk that's convenient and not something the player should shoot for.
20 Justice
Goro Akechi is surprisingly not very useful in the game despite having one of the more interesting stories. He does grant some bonuses and benefits, but nothing very spectacular or game-changing, and the player only has temporary access to them given Goro leaves the team. Like Judgement, this Confidant will also max out on the Good Ending.
19 Devil
Admittedly, Ichikio Ohya can be a useful Confidant if the player struggles with stealth when sneaking in a Palace. But the player will likely develop those skills sooner rather than later, making this Confidant irrelevant.
18 Chariot
Interestingly, this Confidant is so low on the list because of how powerful it is. At Rank 7, Ryuji grants the player the Instant Kill ability which, upon ambushing an enemy, has the chance to immediately kill them without a battle. The major downside is that if defeated this way the enemy will not grant any experience or drop any items, which makes farming much harder.
17 Hanged Man
The Hanged Man is a useful Confidant to have for his ability to upgrade various guns, but he fails to shine for his inability to upgrade the ultimate guns, which is what players will largely be using going forward. This means he’s more useful in the beginning and next to useless towards the end.
16 Lovers
She has a number of abilities that, while they aren’t bad, they aren’t very good either. Girl Talk permits Shadow renegotiations, Protect shields the player from a fatal attack and so on. She doesn’t really have any downsides, but so many Confidants are better or have many of the same abilities which prevent her from being higher on the list.
15 Magician
The Magician is useful for easy access to tools, but the tools themselves aren’t all that useful, which makes his abilities handy but unnecessary. His Treasure Pillage ability can be helpful with farming, but if he weren’t an automatic part of the team, he probably wouldn’t be worth the effort to max out.
14 Hierophant
The Hierophant grants access to some abilities that allows the player to restore SP to all allies in the game, which admittedly is useful, but the effort to get these abilities make it more of a pain than a benefit. Not to mention it takes too long to access his more beneficial abilities, and by then you could access SP adhesives via Death which make his abilities rather useless anyway.
13 Emperor
His ability to create skill cards can be helpful for the right type of player, but odds are most people don’t like the extra bit of micromanagement for the minimal reward. Most players can go through the entire game without ever using skill cards, which makes him handy for some, pointless for most.
12 Priestess
Now we cross over into the Confidants that will have appeal for almost any player with little to no downsides. The Priestess Confidant has abilities that will let the player know important details like what items could drop for farming purposes and whether attacks will be deflected or absorbed by the enemy. It’s helpful, and many consider it worthwhile to rank her to at least 7 for the insights.
11 Empress
The Empress is a useful Confidant for her ability to generate SP recovery items outside of battle. The ability to grow SP recovery crops is helpful and ranking her higher speeds up the acquisition of these useful items.
10 Moon
All of Moon’s abilities revolve around finding ways to grant extra experience. In fact, his ultimate ability, Salvation Wish, grants equal experience to all party members regardless of whether they were active or not. Maxing out Moon’s ranking grants lots of experience bonuses that can save the player lots of farming time in the long run.
9 Sun
The Sun is useful for improving the player’s finances via his economic abilities. Early on player’s can earn more money from negotiations with Shadows and later he can cause the Shadows to cough up the occasional rare item. He's nothing all that special in battle, but you’ll have more cash and rare items in your pocket if you have this Confidant on your side.
8 Hermit
The amount of buffs the Hermit provides is impressive and makes her a powerful Confidant to have. The abilities will randomly kick in through the game, mapping out areas, restocking treasure in dungeons, and even healing the party. You can’t always rely on the powers which is why she doesn’t rank higher, but there’s no denying her usefulness.
7 Death
Death is a very useful Confidant to have as she grants access to the Medical shop, which is stocked with various recovery items. Later levelssees the player getting access to SP Adhesives, which is not something to be taken lightly. The only reason Death doesn’t rank higher is the player needs a stream of income to be able to use her abilities, without the cash Death is a useless Confidant.
6 Tower
Any player who intends to use their guns to maximum effect simply must have the Tower Confidant in their roster. His ability to knock down multiple enemies, increase the party’s ammo capacity, and affect even the most stubborn enemies is impressive. And, if you don’t play with guns typically, get him on your team and try it, Persona 5 will be an entirely different game when you do.
5 Star
Starting out the top five is the Star Confidant, boasting useful ability to swap team members for fresher ones while in battle. It can often mean the difference between victory and defeat and is too useful not to have. The ability to double your money in an ambush on a Shadow shouldn’t be ignored either.
4 Temperance
With all the things you have to do in this game, the ability to free up your time and even delegate certain tasks makes Temperance a must have on your team. Her ultimate ability, Special Message, makes it possible to get stuff done at night when the player would normally be too tired to do anything.
3 Strength
Granting access to triangle fusions and resistance buffs, the Strength Confidant makes your Personas beefier in battle which is never a bad thing. If players are having a hard time winning, odds are it’s because they don’t have this Confidant on their team.
2 Fortune
Fortune deserves her second-place status because of how much time she saves on the social side of things. If you plan on having a lot of Confidants in your corner, which you most likely will, placing her as one of your priorities will make it much easier to manage.