History GameBreaker / Persona

** [[LimitBreak Thuergy skills]] are aslo considered as this too, for a wide variety of reasons:

*** Offensive-based Theurgies (Cyclone Arrow, Hack n' Blast, Lightning Spike, etc.) are already devastating as LimitBreak moves but with with Charge, Concentrate, and (de)buff Support skills, they can easily shave off very large amounts of the enemies' HP (including bosses) and all of them can even bypass their resistances and immunities. Special mention goes to Scarlet Havoc, which is capable of one-shotting any enemy (including Elizabeth) if fully charged, buffed, and beefed up with passives that increases the strength of Slash damage and the chance of landing Critical hits.

* NewGamePlus is rather obvious as a GameBreaker, but worth listing here for convenience's sake. Each New Game Plus allows you to carry over the Persona Compendium, items you collected, the 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 the 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.

* For ''Persona 3 Portable'', ''Persona 4 Golden'', and ''Persona 5 Royal'' specifically, ever since the games were released on PC and the Nintendo Switch, there are active GameMod communities that can break the games faster and further than before. Some examples can include unlocking your entire party before even meeting them in-game, buffing them to endgame levels, obtaining maximum money, social stats, items, and levels, or even increasing the Persona Compendium to the ''Shin Megami Tensei'' games.

** Thuergy skills are aslo considered as this too, for a wide variety of reasons:

** Saturnus, a late-game Star Persona, which can be unlock after finishing Ryoji's Link Episodes, serves as a much stronger stand-in for Surt. He has innate immunities to Fire and Wind, has Inferno and Concentrate as his default skills, and can learn Fire Amp, Heat Riser and Repel Ice. Give him Fire Boost and Spell Master, and you have one of the better endgame Fire Personas in the game. He also has a Heart Item for the Blazing Flame accessory, which Surt previously had.

** [[VideoGame/Persona5 The Phantom Thieves' initial Personas]] from the ''Royal'' Set 1 DLC, can only resist a specific element, have one innate weakness for each, and lack any immunities (Null, Drain, and Repel). Sounds unimpressive, right? Well, there's a ''very'' good reason they're listed as this, because they possess the unique Driver passive skills, which strengthens a type of attack (either physical or elemental) by a 75%, and by stacking them with Boost (including Single/Multi-Target Boost), Amp, and Magic Ability passives, their overall base damage raises to a whopping 150-190%. And similar to the above Chi You, [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman all of them are resist-only Personas]], so you can just bring them along as great damage-dealing alternatives against Elizabeth if they're properly customized and given Resist skill cards.

** Resist Phys, a passive skill that not only negates a Persona's innate weakness to physical attacks, but also halves the the damage taken from all three of them. That skill seems to be just a three-in-one Resist skill at first glance, but BoringButPractical kicks in when you slap it on resist-only Personas who are only weak to physical attacks (such as Saki Mitama and Decarabia, who are weak to Strike and Slash respectively), since it's ''very'' useful against for the Elizabeth boss fight.

** The Phantom Thieves' initial Personas from the ''Royal'' Set 1 DLC, can only resist a specific element, have one innate weakness for each, and lack any immunities (Null, Drain, and Repel). Sounds plain, right? Well, there's a ''very'' good reason they're listed as this, because they possess the unique Driver passive skills, which strengthens a type of attack (either physical or elemental) by a 75%, and by stacking them with Boost (including Single/Multi-Target Boost), Amp, and Magic Ability passives, their overall base damage raises to a whopping 150-190%. And similar to the above Chi You, [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman all of them are resist-only Personas]], so you can just bring them along as great damage-dealing alternatives against Elizabeth if they're properly customized and given Resist skill cards.

** Shuffle Time has also been altered to become similar to ''Persona 4 Golden'': The cards are not face down while you're picking them, the Cup cards have more additional effects besides healing, and the Sword cards contain Skill Cards instead of weapons. It also contain Major Arcana cards, which grants great benefits while you're still in Tartarus, and once the Arcana Burst gauge is filled up by drawing them, the Minor Arcana cards would get a rank up. The Fool (extra EXP gain), Lovers (Fused Personas gain one extra level up), Justice (draw 1 more card), Devil (items dropped from Shadows or breakable objects are doubled), Star (also draw 1 more card), Moon (instant Soma effect), Sun (Fuse Personas who are 5 Levels higher than the MCs current Level), and Judgment (Party member with the lowest Level gains more EXP) are must haves to make the game a little more easier.

* The Phantom Thieves' initial Personas from the ''Royal'' Set 1 DLC, can only resist a specific element, have one innate weakness for each, and lack any immunities (Null, Drain, and Repel). Sounds plain, right? Well, there's a ''very'' good reason they're listed as this, because they possess the unique Driver passive skills, which strengthens a type of attack (either physical or elemental) by a 75%, and by stacking them with Boost (including Single/Multi-Target Boost), Amp, and Magic Ability passives, their overall base damage raises to a whopping 150-190%. And similar to the above Chi You, [[ThisLooksLikeAJobForAquaman all of them are resist-only Personas]], so you can just bring them along as great damage-dealing alternatives against Elizabeth if they're properly customized and given Resist skill cards.

** Chi You, the ultimate Persona of the Tower Arcana, is nothing special on paper, but being a good endgame Persona with two innate resistances and lacking any immunities is ''definitely'' not a bad thing, because he has Primal Force and Vorpal Blade, can learn Arms Master, and if you give him Resist Elec, Apt Pupil, and Enduring Soul (Firm Stance is also a good skill, but has the side-effect of not evading at all), he's one of the ideal Personas for the job against the {{superboss}} if Orpheus Telos is not yet available. His ''Reload'' version is even more so, since that game introduces Amp passives for Physical skills and critical hits.

** Resist Phys, a passive skill that not only negates a Persona's innate weakness to physical attacks, but also halves the the damage taken from all three of them. That skill seems to be nothing special at first glance, but if you slap it on a Persona who is only weak to physical attacks (such as Saki Mitama and Decarabia, who are weak to Strike and Slash respectively), it's ''very'' useful against Elizabeth, since the boss fight ONLY allows resist-only Personas.

** Resist Phys, a passive skill that not only negates a Persona's innate weakness to physical attacks, but also halves the the damage taken from all three of them. That skill seems to be nothing special at first glance, but if you slap it on a Persona who is only weak to physical attacks (such as Saki Mitama and Decarabia, who are weak to Strike and Slash respectively), it's ''very'' useful against Elizabeth, since the boss fight ONLY allows resist-only Personas.

* ''[[VideoGame/Persona3Reload Reload]]'' further introduces new rule-defying stuff, as the following can attest to:

** Messiah is even more busted here than in the original. Despite lacking Magic Skill Up and Oratorio from his previous appearances, he now has innate immunity to Dark and thanks to having Null Phys (which acts as Null Slash, Strike, and Pierce ''all at once''), the MC can now shrug off ''any'' physical attack thrown at him. Combined with Morning Star (which is ONLY inheritable unique skill here), Concentrate, Almighty Boost and Amp passives, Victory Cry, and Spell Master, he's vitrually nigh-unstoppable.

** One of the [=NPCs=] you can rescue from Tartarus is Bunkichi, the old man from the Hierophant Social Link. Rescuing him not only lets you resume advancing the Link, but he'll give you a stack of 10 Homonculi, automatically-used expendable items that each block one [[OneHitKill Light or Dark]] attack that hits. Get this reward and you don't have to worry about instant-kill spells for a while.
* ''Reload'' further introduces more rule-defying features, as the following can attest to:

** Saturnus, a late-game Star Persona, which can be unlock after finishing Ryoji's Link Episodes (and by sparing him during the December 31 event to boot), serves as a much stronger stand-in for Surt. He has innate immunities to Fire and Wind, has Inferno and Concentrate as his default skills, and can learn Fire Amp, Heat Riser and Repel Ice. Give him Fire Boost and Spell Master, and you have one of the better endgame Fire Personas in the game. He also has a Heart Item for the Blazing Flame accessory, which Surt previously had.

* ''Reload'' introduces combat characteristics that grant unique abilities to your party members. The real winner of this system is Yukari and her Healing Apex ability, which ''cuts the SP cost of all healing skills by 75%''. For context, it takes until she learns Mediarahan to pick up a skill more expensive than the SP recovered by Invigorate 3, which can be granted to her via equipment. Combine this with her Theurgy gauge being filled by healing, which she can do pretty much every turn, and you get an even better healer than the MasterOfAll protagonist and a top contender for the best party member in the game.

** Surt, the ultimate Persona of the Magician Arcana, is very self-sufficient for a level 50 Persona - it starts with Agidyne and Fire Boost, then it picks up Maragidyne, Fire Amp, and its signature skill Ragnarok. You can stack Fire Boost with Fire Amp to unleash some truly devastating fire attacks, and perhaps the only skill you need to pass onto it is something to cover its Ice weakness. He even gives a Heart Item that Nulls Fire so that you can stop worrying about Mitsuru's weakness being exploited.

** The ultimate persona of the Star Arcana, Lucifer (Helel in the [[UpdatedReRelease FES and Portable remakes]]). His stats are sky high, is naturally immune to all 3 Physical attack types (though Helel in the remakes only resists them), and learns Morning Star, which deals even more Almighty damage than Megidolaon with less SP. However, those are almost moot provided the player also has Satan; the "Armageddon" Fusion Spell, which deals 9999 Almighty damage to all enemies at 100% accuracy. While it ''will'' kill every enemy who isn't the FinalBoss or the [[{{Superboss}} Ultimate Boss]] in the game, Armageddon in itself isn't a GameBreaker, because it costs 100% of your SP to cast. No, what makes it this trope is the passive skill "Victory Cry" which replenishes all your HP and SP at the end of each combat (Lucifer learns it innately in the original game, but for Helel in the remakes it needs to be fused/equipped into). End result: You win everything. To top it off, it's fairly easy to fuse him with the aforementioned "Spell Master" which halves all MP cost. Yes, that includes Armageddon. Now, even going into combat in less than 100% SP lets you win everything as well. ''Portable'' lacks this feature because Fusion Spells are consumable items that you trade gems for in that game, and Armageddon requires a ''lot'' of gems to even acquire one copy.
** ''FES'' also brings the MC's ultimate persona: Orpheus Telos. This palette swap of your original persona is clearly specifically designed for the {{superboss}} because it resists everything but Almighty and ailments (the {{superboss}} will automatically kill you if your persona absorbs or repels any of her attacks, so resist is the best possible option) and has great stats. The only spell that it learns naturally is Victory Cry, but most importantly, it can inherit ''every skill in the game''. If you plan everything out right, you can have a single persona with the eight best attacks in the game. Mix and match to your heart's content to decide what eight skill combination is right for you. The catch? He can inherit '''every''' skill in the game, not just the best ones, and because he has an equal likelihood to inherit every skill, you'll spend hours wading through combinations with inferior skills, hoping for that one-in-a-million perfect combination that you just spent a few hours setting up. He's only available after you've maxed out all your Social Links in a single playthrough, and a [[PurposelyOverpowered worthy reward for all that effort]].

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[[folder:Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth]]

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* Skill Cards return in this remake, allowing you to teach a Persona a skill of your choice regardless of its inheritance type. Not every single skill has a skill card (for example, Morning Star or Hassou Tobi), but skills like Victory Cry, Power/Mind Charge, Absorb [element] and Primal Force all do. Most of the time you earn Skill Cards through the Sword Cards in Shuffle time, but sipping a coffee at Chagall Cafe lets you earn a skill card from a Persona (indicated on their status screen). Marie can even register skill cards for re-purchase, though the best ones will cost a bomb (e.g. Absorb Physical going for 600,000 yen).

* Trumpeter 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 Persona immune to everything except Almighty and ailments. 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). Unlike most other game breaker Personas in the game, 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.
** 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.
* Norn not only has Auto-Masuku which makes for a good base to fuse on Auto-Mataru and Auto-Maraku, but level her up enough and she'll learn Debilitate, making for a strong opener for boss fights. Even if you're not using her for stacking Auto-buffs, her fusion components (Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos) can easily bestow Wind Boost, Wind Amp, and Mind Charge to fully optimize her Wind DPS.
* Yoshitsune is the best physical attacker in the game because of his Hassou Tobi attack. Eight separate hits, though with light damage, will outdo single hit severe damage attacks 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, which are both skills that he learns innately), 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 uses of it. The tricky part, however, is getting ''to'' Hassou Tobi -- even with a high-level to maxed-out Tower Social Link you'll still be a few levels off and need to grind to get there, but once you have it you're set to destroy everything vulnerable to physical attacks.

* Alice is the Dark counterpart to Daisoujou -- her signature Die for Me! spell pretty much murders anything that has no Dark resistance, especially while augmented by Mudo Boost. She can be further refined with the help of one of her fusion ingredients: Nebiros learns Null Light to cover her weakness (and is far better than Endure Light) and Spell Master to make everything cheaper.

** The Emperor card causes your currently-equipped Persona to level up immediately, before calculating any experience gained from battle. This lets you power-level your Personas for far less effort, unlocking potent skills for fusion early on. There's a reason it has a low drop rate during a Shuffle Time.

** The Cup minor Arcana refills some of your party's HP and SP, which can extend the length of an early-game dungeon trip. Combine with Rise's end-of-battle restoration abilities and finishing a dungeon in a single calendar day becomes really easy.

* Changes to the Shuffle Time in ''Golden'' now let you collect Arcana cards to increase the rewards from a random battle, instead of just a Persona. Triggering a Sweep Bonus by picking the table clean guarantees a Shuffle Time from the next battle, so you can chain Shuffle Times and Sweep Bonuses back-to-back to get a lot out of fighting random battles. Among these new Shuffle Time rewards, a few selections stand out:
** The Magician card will upgrade any one of your Persona's skills to its next tier (for instance, Zio to Mazio, Magarula to Garudyne, Megido to Megidola). It will take some SaveScumming due to the low drop rate, but if you keep getting Magicians during Shuffle Time, you can upgrade Physical skills to game-breaking levels as early as the Bathhouse. For tanking, a simple Slime can become a GameBreaker though this method. Slime is available as early as Yukiko's Castle, and is otherwise unremarkable apart from learning Resist Physical at the very end of its skill set. A Magician card will upgrade this skill to ''Null Physical'', granting you complete physical immunity at the very beginning of the game. Once Slime has served its purpose, it makes for great fusion fodder to pass the skill on.
** The Emperor card causes your currently-equipped Persona to level up immediately, before calculating any experience gain. This lets you power-level your Personas for far less effort, unlocking potent skills for fusion early on. There's a reason it has a low drop rate during a Shuffle Time.

* Changes to the Shuffle Time in ''Golden'' now let you directly pick which boon you want instead of waiting through a timing-based minigame. On top of that, you now have the minor Arcana cards that can increase the rewards from battle, in addition to the major Arcana cards from before. Triggering a Sweep Bonus by picking the table clean guarantees a Shuffle Time from the next battle, so you can chain Shuffle Times back-to-back to get a lot out of fighting random battles.
** The Magician card will upgrade any one of your Persona's skills to its next tier (for instance, Zio to Mazio, Garula to Magarula, Megido to Megidola). It will take some SaveScumming, but if you keep getting Magicians during Shuffle Time, you can upgrade Physical skills to game-breaking levels as early as the Bathhouse. For tanking, a simple Slime can become a GameBreaker though this method. Slime is available as early as Yukiko's Castle, and is otherwise unremarkable apart from learning Resist Physical. An upright Magician card will upgrade this skill to ''Null Physical'', granting you complete physical immunity at the very beginning of the game. Once Slime has served its purpose, it makes for great fusion fodder to pass the skill on.

* Soma are items that restore full HP and SP to the entire party. All versions of ''Persona 3'' give you a decent stock of them should you save them up, which makes surviving some of the harder bosses much easier. ''Persona 4'' and ''5'' severely limit the amount of Soma you can get in a single run because of this.

** The ultimate persona of the Star Arcana, Lucifer (Helel in the [[UpdatedReRelease FES and Portable remakes]]). His stats are sky high, is naturally immune to all 3 Physical attack types (though Helel in the remakes only resists them), and learns Morning Star, which deals even more Almighty damage than Megidolaon with less SP. However, those are almost moot provided the player also has Satan; the "Armageddon" Fusion Spell, which deals 9999 Almighty damage to all enemies at 100% accuracy. While it ''will'' kill every enemy who isn't the FinalBoss or the [[{{Superboss}} Ultimate Boss]] in the game, Armageddon in itself isn't a GameBreaker, because it costs 100% of your SP to cast. No, what makes it this trope is the passive skill "Victory Cry" which replenishes all your HP and SP at the end of each combat (Lucifer learns it innately in the original game, but for Helel in the remakes it needs to be fused/equipped into). End result: You win everything. To top it off, it's fairly easy to fuse him with the aforementioned "Spell Master" which halves all MP cost. Yes, that includes Armageddon. Now, even going into combat in less than 100% SP lets you win everything as well. However, in ''Portable'', Fusion Spells are done via items which require grinding for more items (and Armageddon requires ''99'' of the main item and 10 more difficult ones to get).

** The Antiques shop also offers some Skill Cards in exchange for the gems you acquire from defeating Shadows. Really valuable passives offered include Resist [Element] cards which means you won't have to worry about patching weaknesses, Arms Master and Spell Master to reduce your skill costs, and the Growth cards (up to Growth 3!) that bestow LeakedExperience for levelling multiple Personas.
** Also of note: Skill Cards ''can be reproduced for no cost''. The Inari Sushi in the temple can take one card and make a copy of it after a few days. If you religiously go there every time he finishes, you can load up on very powerful skills you can put on any Persona you want. Or if you don't want to wait and have an excess of money, the Compendium will allow you to register a Persona just before it gives you a skill card. Gain one level to get the skill card, fuse that persona into something else, get a replacement from the Compendium, gain one level for another skill card. Lather, rinse, repeat.

** One of the [=NPCs=] you can rescue from Tartarus is Bunkichi, the old man from the Hierophant Social Link. Resucing him not only lets you resume advancing the Link, but they'll give you a stack of 10 Homonculi, automatically-used expendable items that each block one [[OneHitKill Light or Dark]] attack that hits. Get this reward and you don't have to worry about instant-kill spells for a while.

* Black Frost is an accessible by the midgame as a level 38 Persona. As one mandatory to advance Margaret's Social Link, he's hard to miss, but is well worth the effort to make anyway. Three immunities and no weaknesses make him a very good Persona already, and his innate skill set includes Agidyne, Fire Amp, and Mind Charge, giving him incredible boss-melting DPS. All this comes to fruition at level 43, and the plot-mandated Fool Social Link will already provide him with plenty of bonus experience to make it easier to hit that point. Once he's outlived the point where he remains useful, all three skills are still valuable ones to pass in fusion, especially since he's likely your earliest source of a -dyne spell and Amp skill.

* 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, which are both skills that he learns innately), 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 uses of it. The tricky part, however, is getting ''to'' Hassou Tobi -- even with a high-level Tower Social Link you'll still be a few levels off and need to grind to get there, but once you have it you're set to destroy everything vulnerable to physical attacks.

* Changes to the Shuffle Time in ''Golden'' include the Major/Minor Arcana cards that increase the rewards from battle, upgrade your equipped Persona, and if you play your cards right, you can trigger a "Sweep Bonus" to guarantee a Shuffle Time after the next battle. You can chain Sweep Bonuses to make the most of it, and some cards stand out:

** The Emperor card causes your currently-equipped Persona to level up immediately, before calculating any experience gain. This lets you power-level your Personas for far less effort, unlocking potent skills for fusion early on.
** The Justice, Strength, Hanged Man, Chariot, and Fortune cards increase the Strength, Magic, Endurance, Agility, and Luck of the equipped Persona by 1 respectively. [[MagikarpPower It will take some time,]] but enough use of these cards will push your Persona's stats far beyond what you can normally achieve by leveling up.

* The [[MetalSlime Golden Hand shadows]] are now worth a load of experience and money, but in exchange they are highly resistant to most sources of damage and highly susceptible to Almighty. The idea is to fish for {{Critical Hit}}s to knock them down and then unleash a lethal All-Out Attack, but you can bypass the process by using the Megido series of spells -- a situation where the normally AwesomeButImpractical skill really shines. Taotie is the earliest source of it, fusable at level 35. The moment you acquire it, you can farm the Golden Hand shadows with ease and earn great amounts of money and experience.

* For Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 5 Royal specifically, ever since the games are released on PC and the Nintendo Switch, there are active GameMod communities that can break the games faster and further than before. Some examples can include unlocking your entire party before even meeting them in-game, buffing them to endgame levels, obtaining maximum money, social stats, items, and levels, or even increasing the Persona Compendium to the ''Shin Megami Tensei'' games.

** Sumire's Ella learns Masquerade, which deals two colossal physical hits to the enemy.

* The Female Version of Orpheus, another DLC Persona, comes with the unique skill Neo Cadenza, which gives the whole party Heat Riser along with a 50% heal, for the low cost of 24 SP. While it has a low starting level, it can be patched up relatively easy.

* Certain bosses in Mementos avert ContractualBossImmunity, which means you can use status-inducing spells on them. Enemies affected by the Confusion ailment cannot act, and have a chance to instead throw money at you. By intentionally prolonging the fight, you can easily earn hundreds of thousands of yen with very little effort. This is best done with a Persona that has the skills Pulinpa, Confuse Boost, and a high Luck stat (which increases the chance of the enemy throwing money and how much you get).

* DLC Personas, where available, can classify due to learning extremely strong skills ahead of the curve. Your first time summoning them from the Compendium is also free. Granted, they do cost real money to acquire, so there's a bit of BribingYourWayToVictory in their case too.