Guarding & Defending

Guarding is a fundamental defensive action in Persona 5 Royal that allows a character to sificantly reduce incoming damage. While not as flashy as offensive maneuvers, mastering the use of Guard can be the difference between victory and defeat, especially during challenging boss battles or when facing powerful enemies that deal massive damage.

To Guard, simply select the "Guard" command from the action menu during combat. When a character Guards, they brace themselves for the next attack. This action reduces the damage taken from physical and gun attacks by approximately 50%. It also negates critical hits from these attack types, preventing potentially devastating damage spikes.

Guarding is particularly useful in several scenarios:

When an enemy is about to use a powerful, single-target attack: Guarding can mitigate the damage to a manageable level, preventing a party member from being knocked out.
When your party is low on health: Guarding can buy you time to heal or for the enemy's turn to end, allowing you to regroup.
To survive multi-hit attacks: While Guarding doesn't negate all damage from multi-hit attacks, it sificantly reduces the total damage taken.
To bait out specific enemy actions: Sometimes, guarding can prompt an enemy to use a different attack pattern, which you can then exploit.

Guarding does not reduce damage from magical attacks (elemental, bless, curse, psychic, etc.) or status ailments. However, it is still an invaluable tool for survivability. Learn to recognize when an enemy is telegraphing a powerful physical or gun attack and utilize Guard to protect your team.

Some Personas or skills might also enhance defensive capabilities or provide alternative defensive options, but the basic Guard command remains a core mechanic that every player should utilize effectively.