Bond level is probably the most important bonus you can get for combat in Persona 5 Strikers. It can increase literally all kinds of stats for your team and has a ton of utility when you explore or go to combat.
Leveling your bond is as important as upgrading your weapons and armor.
This guide will teach you how to increase bond level in Persona 5 Strikers.
Multiple Ways to Increase Your Bond Level
Bondmaker ability
The highest priority on the list of bond skills to get should be the Bondmaker. It increases the bond experience you get from everything that will be discussed in this article. It gives the most value out of all the great bond skills available especially when taken early. This is because most of the stat bonuses you get will not come from weapons and armor but, you will get them from the first line of bond skills.
The Bondmaker can be upgraded twice after acquiring it for 2 pts and it is best to max it out as soon as it is available. You can max it out when you reach the 3rd jail and you can start acquiring other bond skills such as Oracle’s Recovery (overall sustain for infiltrating jails), Avenger (used for dodging), and bonus stat points.
Cooking food
One unique way of increasing your bond level and gaining experience is through cooking food. This only works on food that you have cooked for the first time. It seems that every time you cook, every one of your friends gets one to eat. Once you introduce a new dish, they will praise your food and see some fun little chatter among the group.
Make sure to explore every shop in each city as every city will have a recipe you can buy. Always purchase the ingredients in all the shops as these snacks are also useful for combat and usually give more healing or SP than what you get from shops. Although not as good as the ones from pharmacies but they are worth it for the price.
Finishing requests
As you progress from jail to jail, you will find new requests at every checkpoint you reach in the story. You will find some requests that give you bond experience when completed. These are relatively easy and 8 requests can be active at a time. The request in the picture above is different. It is acquired through talking to your confidants when they message you through your smartphone and they need something.
These are usually requests and they will only show up on your requests after you talk to them. The opportunity will be gone if you miss out on talking to them and advancing through the story.
Talking to your confidants
Just talking to your friends will sometimes award you with bond experience so make sure to talk to them every time they change position in the city or when you progress through the story. Some of them will have a longer dialogue and give you items.
Exploring each store in the city
Sometimes, when you go to the ramen shop (Ryuji) or the seafood place (Makoto), someone will go with you looking to try out the food. Just interact with the store and this will automatically trigger a dialogue where you will dine with one of your confidants. This increases your bond level and you do not have to pay for anything.
Progressing through the story
Naturally progressing through the story will already increase your bond level and this will be the bulk of your all the bond experience you gain throughout your playthrough. There are some events (even romantic scenes) that will give you bond experience.
Conclusion
While story progression gives the highest bond experience and you just need to play the game normally, you can still increase it quicker by doing everything available in the game. This will help you immensely by making combat easier with perks and abilities.
If you have already played Persona 5 (which you should finish before even starting this game), these activities you find outside of the story should be finished as it is extremely minimal compared to Persona 5.
While the game invested more in the story with beautiful animations, the content outside of the story is lacking. Then again, this is not a JRPG like Persona 5. If you are unfamiliar with this kind of genre but love Persona, you could check out our beginner guide.
