Meatballs — ricotta vs panade

Doing what I love most — researching the food I'm about to make for dinner before making it. (I call this the 360 Recipe, not really following a recipe but downloading a lot of stuff to my brain to inform my intuitive cooking.) I'm going to make meatballs this evening with ricotta, mostly because we have a ton of ricotta and we need to use it up. When you make ricotta meatballs should I also "soak" the panko in the ricotta, like a milk+bread panade? Or will that not make much of a difference? This question is so specific I should also say: please use this post to discuss the different benefits and drawbacks of both methods.