10 Stellar Blade tips and tricks for beginners to master the sword

These Stellar Blade tips will help you get into the game smoothly, making combat and exploration a little easier to understand. Eve's combat techniques and the monstrous Naytibas she must fight are all full of less obvious tricks and nuances, that the game doesn't necessarily make clear, so you'll need to be quite attentive when playing, particularly if you want to master things like parrying.

And combat isn't the only thing you might struggle with as Stellar Blade's world leaves plenty of opportunities for backtracking and is full of all sorts of puzzles, from environmental challenges to oddly-presented math equations. If you're struggling to cleave through alien foes or want some pointers for skills and what you should be looking for as you play our 10 Stellar Blade tips and tricks will help you on your journey through the war-torn Earth.

1. Scan constantly to detect prizes and perils

Your drone comes with a scan function, and frankly you can't use it often enough. The scan isn't just a way of making loot chests glow, it also reveals enemies waiting around corners or inside statues, and - perhaps most importantly - will illuminate new paths and ledges that you can grab onto. It's the last of these you want to be most careful about noticing, as even with the scanner, climbable ledges only have a faint yellow radiance that's still easily missed.

2. Fall damage is disproportionately lethal

Especially early on, fall damage in Stellar Blade is incredibly damaging, and it can be easy to forget when Eve's regular jump is fairly substantial. However, falling past a certain point means that the damage you take on landing will begin to drastically increase, and suddenly you might discover that a minor drop can shred your health bar - or even kill you altogether. Keep that in mind when descending from areas or navigating high ledges, and make sure you learn one of the best Stellar Blade skills that negates fall damage by pressing X in time with hitting the ground - it's a literal life-saver.

3. Keep note of unobtainable items and unreachable paths for later

Despite Stellar Blade seeming linear for a while, it isn't - you'll be able to come back to regions again with new items, tools, and abilities, and you're supposed to. There are a lot of crates you won't be able to open and loot you can't access the first time around, especially in Eidos 7 (like the Stellar Blade red code chest) but once you reach an area called Xion, you'll be able to start returning to old locations. Keep note of stuff you missed the first time around, in the hope that you will be able to get back to it later on.

4. Combat is about taking your time to act quickly

Stellar Blade's combat is played defensively more than offensively, especially when learning the ropes, or when up against major bosses like Abaddon in Stellar Blade. When in trouble, don't rush in and start striking at everything nearby - you'll suffer for it. The smartest thing you can do is take your time and keep your distance, focusing on blocking and avoiding attacks until you see an opportunity to leap in and do some damage - this is more Dark Souls than Bloodborne. As you learn the enemy's behaviour and your own abilities, you can start playing more aggressively, but that's something to be earned, not the default approach to begin an encounter. And in a similar vein…

5. Block first, parry later

The enemy Naytibas are often rather visually busy, not to mention being quick moving and erratic. When coming across an enemy for the first time, don't try to parry - focus on just blocking or backing away, learning their movements. Parrying is certainly helpful, but it's not essential to victory, and if you're taking a beating from mistiming attacks, it's probably because you need a greater understanding of the foes you're up against.

6. Use the training option to judge skills before you buy

When buying skills, there's a little tutorial that you can play through for each one - and while it's not a bad idea to train with them after you get them, it's actually smarter to try them before you buy - so you know what you're getting. Some skills are much harder to use or less viable in combat before they sound, and if nothing else you need to ensure that the muscle memory is ingrained so you can incorporate them into fighting later on. If you don't have many skill points and aren't certain about how to spend them, testing them out can be a good way to make the choice.

7. Look ahead in your skill trees and upgrade paths

Because Eve's skill trees are so branching and fractal, it's really important to not just buy powerful skills, but find targets and work towards them. Unsurprisingly, a lot of the better powers are on the outer branches, so don't just look at what you can currently afford, check the exteriors and set yourself a goal to work towards, ideally something that will enhance what you're already doing. It shouldn't take long - these trees are wide, but not deep.

8. Beta moves can be used more often than you think

Eve's more powerful attacks are called Beta moves, and you'll unlock up to four of them across the early hours of the game (if you invest the skills accordingly). These are tied to a charging special meter, but you should feel free to unleash them pretty liberally. Not only do they charge up through all the basic actions, but there are plenty of skills spread around the various trees that boost Beta charge rates, so that before long you'll be able to use them multiple times in every combat encounter. When that's the case, the last thing you want to do is sit on them and save them up - you'll just end up all the worse off, using those moves once when you could've used them three times.

9. Buy consumables, you can probably afford them!

Stellar Blade's various camps all have vending machines in them that you can buy consumables from. Very early on in the game, when you don't have much money, these will seem like massive expenses, but that sets the wrong lesson and it will quickly change to the opposite - you'll have more than enough money, and the far greater disadvantage will come from going into boss fights without a supply of potions and ammo. Obviously don't go crazy overloading on the stuff, there's other expenses at the hubtown of Xion, but don't limit yourself unnecessarily - ultimately these things will help you progress, and what's more important than that?

10. Turn on Auto-Loot for your own sake

One of Stellar Blade's game settings is an Auto-Loot option - and while it's not very well highlighted, there is absolutely no reason not to turn it on. It's all too-easy to miss the post-fight sweep for materials and elements afterwards, and having this aspect effectively handled for you not only expedites the least interesting bit of the game, it means you're more likely to have more materials for upgrades when you're back at Camp.

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