Best Stellar Blade skills and abilities

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The best skills in Stellar Blade for all of Eve's skill trees

Stellar Blade skills
(Image credit: Sony)

Picking the best Stellar Blade skills and abilities across all five of Eve's skill trees will make her more agile and lethal in combat. For example, the Survival skill tree is full of excellent skills to enhance your essential dodging and parrying abilities, while the Attack tree (unsurprisingly) improves damage and unlocks new attack combos - there's even a stealth assassination attack that can kill certain enemies instantly to avoid a direct clash.

Two of the five skill trees are initially locked, however, so you'll need to uncover these to gain access to entirely new suites of abilities for Eve to bolster her combat skills even more. With all that in mind, here are the best abilities and skills in Stellar Blade that I recommend unlocking as early as possible, as well as how you can unlock the two final two skill trees.

Best Skills in Stellar Blade

Stellar Blade skills

(Image credit: Sony)

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.

Stellar Blade skills

(Image credit: Sony)
  • Attack Skill Tree
    • Ambush: A sneak attack that insta-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.

Stellar Blade skills

(Image credit: Sony)
  • 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.

Stellar Blade skills

(Image credit: Sony)
  • 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?

Stellar Blade ladder puzzle

(Image credit: Sony)

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.

Stellar Blade skills

(Image credit: Sony)
  • 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.

Stellar Blade skills

(Image credit: Sony)
  • 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.

With these pointers for the best abilities and our Stellar Blade tips, you should have an easier time taking on bosses like Stellar Blade Abaddon.

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Joel Franey
Joel Franey
Guides Editor, GamesRadar+

Joel Franey is a writer, journalist, podcaster and Very Tired Man with a BA from Brunel University, a Masters from Sussex University and a decade working in games journalism, often focused on guides coverage but also in reviews, features and news. His love of games is strongest when it comes to groundbreaking narratives like Disco Elysium, UnderTale and Baldur's Gate 3, as well as innovative or refined gameplay experiences like XCOM, Sifu, Arkham Asylum or Slay the Spire. He is a firm believer that the vast majority of games would be improved by adding a grappling hook, and if they already have one, they should probably add another just to be safe. You can find old work of his at Eurogamer, Gfinity, USgamer, SFX Magazine, RPS, Dicebreaker, VG247, and more.

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