Persona 3 Reload – Ken vs Yukari (Who’s The Better Healer?)

Comparison Between The Two Healers

This post is a comparison of pros and cons between Ken and Yukari within reload. I wrote this to help provide some insight to people who ask the question of “Who’s the better healer?”

Ken’s Pros:

• Has access to the best healing Theurgy in the game: Divine Retribution, which revives KOd teammates and restores everyone to full health. They will then be outfitted with both a magical and a physical shield.
• Ken’s spells require a lot of SP, which helps him fall below the required range for his theurgy boost conditions to activate.
• SP Regeneration makes it hard for Ken to fully run out of SP.
• Has good versality as a user of both lightning and light magic. He has access to instakill and normal light magic attacks as well as a single target lightning attack and a single target physical pierce skill attack.
• Is able to buff his allies with the use of Heat Riser.
• Is able to debuff, buffed enemies with the use of Dekaja.
• Is able to place physical and magical shields over teammates.
• Has light amp.
• Though minor, Kens base level 99 stats show him to have a slight advantage in survivability over Yukari with his Agility, Endurance, Luck and Health stats being higher.
• Ken’s strength stat being higher than Yukari allows him to dish out more physical damage. Add Ken’s pierce physical and you can get even more pierce damage than Yukari.

Ken’s Cons:

• Does not have access to any Ailment Healing, this includes Ken’s Theurgy: Divine Intervention, which does not heal ailments, only teammates that have been KOd.
• Weakness to darkness makes him vulnerable to Instakill attacks. This can worsen a situation if an enemy is able to link multiple Instakill attacks off of Ken.
• Has no ailment inflicting skills.
• Some of his support skills like Dekaja and Tetrakarn are rarely useful. Though it can vary depending on playstyle.
• Has no access to single target light instakill attacks.
• Has no access to single target healing skills.
• Has no access to multi target electric attacks.

Yukari’s Pros:

• Yukari’s theurgy: Tranquility allows her to cast concentrate on all members of the party.
• Yukari has a high pool of SP as well as personality trait which reduces the cost of healing skills.
• Her personality trait pairs well with her theurgy boost conditions, which increase the gauge whenever she heals someone.
• Yukari has the strongest magic stats in the game, allowing her to deal more magic damage than Ken.
• Has wind amp.
• Has access to ailment healing skills.
• Has access to ailment Inflicting skills.
• Has access to Musukunda. A multi target speed debuff.
• Has access to windbreak, which can help deal with wind resistant enemies.

Yukari’s Cons:

• Low survivability due to her low health. Compared to Ken her survivability is only slightly worse than his.
• Masukunda is one of the worst debuff skills.
• Lowest physical damage in the game.
• Has no buff skills for allies. -Ailment healing doesn’t build theurgy gauge.

Testing:

In terms of magic damage, I did a little field test using both Divine Retribution and Cyclone Arrow theurgies.

The test was conducted on the Harmony Giant within the Adamah Block. Only tested once with no buffs or debuffs, other than their respective elemental amp passive skill. Both parties at level 99. Here are the results:

Yukari/Cyclone Arrow: 1108 Ken/Divine Retribution: 1054

I also tested the two using their strongest non-theurgy spell on a Doom Sword within the Adamah Block. Tested once with no debuffs or buffs besides their respective elemental amp passive skill.

Both parties were at level 99.

Ken/Makougaon: 488 Yukari/Garudyne: 426

Conclusion

Though I haven’t done thorough testing of the magic damage difference between Ken and Yukari, the results seem miniscule in comparison.

While this answer is the most boring one, ultimately, the best healer is whoever you want it to be. Whether it’s Ken’s versatility or Yukari’s party wide concentrate. It really depends on what you’re looking for in a healer.

Though, personally I still think that Ken is the superior healer to Yukari.