The Palace Bosses of Persona 5 are some of the most difficult in the entire series. The manifestation of villainous and malicious adults, each palace boss has their own set of strengths that are hard to prepare for, and nearly all of them go through multiple stages with different powers and resistances.
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Thankfully, most of them have certain vulnerabilities that can make these opponents a walk in the park in the form of damage weaknesses and habits to their attack that players can easily counter. These are a few attack patterns that you should be prepared for, and which types of attacks you should be using on each final palace boss.
Updated on August 1, 2023 by Quinton O'Connor: We've added a few more bits on what to expect from each palace boss, so whether you're new to P5R or a returning Phantom Thief, we hope you'll dig our details!
7 Kamoshida
The first palace boss, the condescending and predatory teacher Kamoshida, is thankfully quite simple to beat. He lacks any direct weaknesses, but he also does not resist any form of damage. This means you can take him down equally with any damage that you, Ryuji, and Ann can dish out.
The one odd habit of his is that, due to his obsession with Ann, Kamoshida will target Ann with a powerful physical attack. Keeping her at full health and ready to defend is key to surviving this fight, and just using her healing abilities should keep your team healthy enough to whittle him down to size.
6 Madarame
Compared to Kamoshida, the artist Madarame is a significantly more complex boss. Rather than a single entity, he’ll transform into several different facial features including an eye, nose, and mouth that each heal when dealt certain types of damage.
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None of the parts themselves have weaknesses, but so long as you use the right moves the fight can be over relatively fast. The eyes will be healed when hit with any elemental magic, the nose will drain non-elemental magic like Psy and Nuke, and the mouth can’t be dealt any Gun or Physical damage.
5 Kaneshiro
Kaneshiro is much more similar to Kamoshida as a boss, having no direct weaknesses and with his massive tank Piggytron dealing mostly Physical damage. Kaneshiro will try to deal curse damage to your team and can also inflict the Fear ailment, but these aren’t as threatening as the harsh physical damage Piggytron inflicts.
The big key to the battle is to always attack Kaneshiro himself when he exits the Piggytron, as enough damage will cause him to fall and get rolled over by his own machine. Just attack this miserable fly as soon as you see him, and you should be in good shape through the fight.
4 Isshiki
At the end of Futaba’s Palace is her mother, who’s transformed into a divine bird that deals tremendous Physical and Wind damage, making the Wind-vulnerable Ryuji a poor choice for this fight. Isshiki won’t deal damage when the fight starts, so it’s recommended to just defend for a few turns until a cutscene plays and Futaba joins the fight.
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Afterward, follow the team’s strategy to knock her out of the sky, and once Isshiki is grounded she’ll be exceptionally vulnerable to Physical damage. Just use any stat boosts before she’s knocked down, and deal an obscene amount of damage with Physical skills and basic attacks.
3 Okumura
Haru’s father, Kunikazu Okumura, is unlike any fight in the game. Rather than primarily dealing with him, you spend most of the fight taking down swarms of robotic enemies within a time limit. Okumura himself has no weaknesses, but nearly every one of his drones has at least two magic weaknesses while resisting all other forms of damage.
As a result, a team that deals a wide variety of damage types will be a huge asset. The trick to knowing each weakness is that each new robot is weak to the next type of magic in the line of types in the menu. For example, the first ones in blue vests are weak to Fire and Wind magic, while the yellow-vested ones after are weak to Ice and Psy attacks.
Each robot follows this progression along the type line as they appear, up until the MDL-ED in the black suit at the end who has no weaknesses or resistances.
2 Sae
In the original Persona 5, Sae is a deceptively simple fight in terms of weaknesses, even though the roulette and cutscenes make this fight complicated on the surface. She lacks any specific vulnerabilities, and while there are many ways for her to heal and take your money, she’ll only ever deal Physical, Gun, and Almighty damage with her attacks.
But most of us will be playing Persona 5 Royal, especially now, years after the enhanced edition's release. For us, there' more to deal with, as the roulette also displays a specific weakness that the Phantom Thieves will have to exploit to defeat her. While this complicates the already-flashy fight, it also clues you in on what to use, and if you happen to lack access to that element, just wail away at Sae until things change in your favor.
1 Shido
The final main palace boss of Persona 5, Masayoshi Shiro, is perhaps one of the longest and most challenging fights of the game. He goes through several different stages and transformations that can be challenging to keep up with, but much like Okumura’s fight, it means having a well-balanced team can give you a huge edge.
His first form rides a beast that changes its weaknesses based on its form, being resistant to Physical and Gun damage on the ground and resisting all types of magic while flying in the air. The pyramid and human forms he takes afterward are equally affected by any kind of damage, but his first human form deals mostly Almighty and Physical damage while his redder human form deals all sorts of magic damage to your entire party.
Be ready with magic resistance items and skills for this last stage, or else he might annihilate your team immediately.
NEXT: Persona 5 Royal: Best Party Setup For Each Palace
