The best Stellar Blade skills and abilities

The best Stellar Blade skills and abilities are spread across five various skill trees, powering up combat through enhancements to your agility, charging up your skills quicker, giving you more options or simply teaching you deadly new attacks. If you're looking at how to build up Eve and want some indication of what to aim for, we'll explain the best abilities and skills in Stellar Blade below, as well as how you can unlock the two locked skill trees.

Best Skills in Stellar Blade

The best skills in Stellar Blade are laid out below, broken up into their respective skill trees. If you want to know about the two locked Skill Trees, that info is at the bottom of the guide beneath this section.

• Attack Skill Tree
  • Ambush: A sneak attack that instant-kills unaware foes. Though not always usable, it's so lethal you can end a fight before it even starts.
  • Beta Energy Recharge 1: Increases Beta energy on regular attacks. Obvious benefits.
  • Rush Chain 1: A simple, easy and very effective combo that closes the distance to opponents.

• Survival Skill Tree
  • Focus Boost: Makes it easier to perfect parry. Considering the value of the core skill, you want it to trigger as much as possible.
  • Counter 2: Rewards perfect parries with a damaging attack that temporarily boosts melee power. 
  • Repulse: The partner skill to Blink is lethal when paired with the gun, as it reveals weak points that you can shoot for massive damage - plus it allows you to evade many Fatal attacks.
  • Double Dodge: Allows you to chain dodges. A general mobility boost that helps a lot with defensive play.
  • Precise Landing: A timed press of X allows you to negate fall damage. Considering how much fall damage can ruin you, it's good to have a solution.

• Beta Skill Tree
  • (All base skills): Obviously your first priority should be to get all the base Beta abilities, before you then upgrade them.
  • Beta Energy Withdrawal: All Beta Skills have a modification that pays back Beta energy when used on an opponent. Get these ASAP.
  • Impact Enhancement (Triplet): Stuns opponents hit by the Triplet, as well as a damage boost.
  • Shield Damage Boost (Shield Breaker): The Shield Breaker is great for dealing with bosses, and this doubles down on that quality. 

What are the locked Skill Trees in Stellar Blade?

Minor spoilers to follow, but there are two locked Skill Trees when you start playing Stellar Blade, with no indication of how to unlock them or what they do. In fact, both are unlocked simply through core story progression. One of them is the "Tachy" skill tree, focused on a special temporary super-mode, and the other is the "Burst" skill tree, a new set of triggered abilities and attacks attached to a chargeable meter, like a sibling to the Beta skill tree. Both of these should be unlocked by the 10 hour mark, assuming you're following the main story and not spending too much time on other content.

Once you do have them of course, you'll have new skills to choose from and spend skill points on. I'll cover the best picks for those now.

• Tachy Skill Tree
  • Judgement Time: Extends the duration of Tachy Mode, and unlocking it requires getting all the attached ability powers. Work up to this one early on.
  • Judgement Rush: Leaps at the enemy to clear distance with an attack. With this mode being timed, getting to foes fast is a priority.

• Burst Skill Tree
  • (All base skills): Like the Beta tree, your first approach should be to get the core four abilities so you can then work on improving them.
  • Overload 2 and Quick Boost 2 (Overdrive): Overdrive is the best of the four skills, and these two abilities double down on its core powers. Grab them early to improve melee power and speed.

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