With only one more Gatekeeper battle to go until you may reach the first of your Monad Passages and hit the border floor in the Yabbashah block of Tartarus inPersona 3 Reload, you’ve got one heck of a fight ahead if you’d like to continue.

Controlling and Dependent Partners are strong Gatekeeper Shadows that attack you together, and they’re pretty determined to heal and buff one another, making you put in a little extra work to counter their support work on one another. With only one Shadow actually weak to any damage, they won’t go down without a fight.

aigis junpei yukari and the protagonist all out attack persona 3 reload p3r

Since you’re now well into theYabbashah blockof Tartarus, you’ll have Aigis in the party already when you encounter the Controlling and Dependent Partners Gatekeeper battle on91F, just before the border floor into the second half of the block.

This is also where you’ll find the Monad Passage Elizabeth was telling you about, but you’ll need to defeat Controlling and Dependent partners before you may investigate.

yukari firing at dependant partner in persona 3 reload p3r partners gatekeepers

Aigis having joined the partyis a great thing, sinceone of the Gatekeepers is weak to Pierce damage, andonlyto Pierce damage. Because of this, bothAigis and Yukarimake great choices for the team due to their innate physical damage both being Pierce.

In addition to her Pierce damage,Yukari has a wealth of healing movesthat will come in handy during this battle when the Partners tie of healing one another and begin inflicting damage onto your team, since they’re quite powerful Shadows.

controlling partner affinity chart persona 3 reload p3r

We’d recommend rounding out the team withJunpei, since he not only has impressive stats by the time you encounter the Partners Gatekeeper (if you’ve been leveling him, of course), but he’ll also be able to help you dealPierce damagewhen he’s not busy exploiting the regular affinity to Fire on the Controlling Partner with your protagonist.

As for your level, we’d recommend being at leastLevel 36-38before taking on the fight.

dependent partner’s affinity chart persona 3 reload p3r

Controlling And Dependent Partners' Affinities

In the tables below, we’ve kept track of both partners' respective affinities, and knowing them ahead of time can save you the SP of asking Fuuka to scan them yourself.

Affinities and Weaknesses

using torrent shot on the dependent partner persona 3 reload p3r

-

Attacks and Skills

yukari using her theurgy on the controlling partner persona 3 reload p3r

Diarama

Restores a medium amount of HP to one ally.

You’ll find the Shadows healing one another quite often, so be prepared for a lengthy fight with healing items and spells of your own.

How To Beat Controlling And Dependent Partners

With twotough Shadows to beatin this Gatekeeper fight in Persona 3 Reload, you’ll need toattack each Shadow separatelyfor the majority of the fight, since theydon’t share many common affinities.

One of the largest frustrations of the fight is thatthe partners are intent on healing and buffing one anotherthroughout the fight, with priority, it seems, given to healing the other if you’ve knocked the other Shadow down or hurt it too badly.

controlling partner grieving after you ko dependent partner p3r persona 3 reload gatekeeper

The other is thatControllingPartner doesn’t have any weaknessesin its affinity chart, only things that deal a normal amount of damage. You’ll need tocompletely avoid Slash, Strike, Light, and Dark moves, as Controlling Partner is completely immune to them.

Just be mindful ofTetrakarn and Makarakarn, which provide either physical or magical coverage for the Shadow for three turns. During this time, theyrepel that damageback to you, so don’t hurt yourself trying to hurt them.

This makes the battle against Controlling and Dependent Partners a great time toliberally make use of yourTheurgy skills, both the teammates you brought and your growing assortment of them. Theurgy ignores affinities to deal a huge amount of damage, so do your best tocome to the fight with your Theurgy gauges already charged.

Especially helpful are Theurgy skills that can down the enemies, asDependent Partner’s weakness to Pierce damage is easy to exploiteven if you’re not using our party recommendation above.

Between HP-based physical damage moves and default Pierce damage from those who can use it,Pierce is Dependent Partner’s only weakness, so exploit it wherever possible.

Should you manage to down Controlling Partner, it’s helpful to immediately hit Dependent Partner with a Pierce attack to down it as well for an All-Out Attack, as this is your only chance to do so with Controlling Partner not having a weakness.

Even if you can’t use many All-Out Attacks, you can keep the battle in your favor by trying tokeep the Dependent Partner downedthrough constant Pierce attacks, which leads to theControlling Partner focusing on healing themto spend the turn without doing damage to your party.

You’ll likelydefeat Dependent Partner firstdue to the imbalance in weaknesses, but what’s interesting is thatControlling Partner spends a turn or two mourningfor its lost partner after Dependent Partner falls. This is a great chance tolay on your heaviest damageto bring the fight home.