Best Ghost of Yotei skills and abilities

The best Ghost of Yotei skills are able to completely turn the tide of combat, allowing you complete mastery over your foes or to even avoid a fight outright by assassination or stealth. There's no real build pathing here – you're going to want to dip into just about everything – compared to Ghost of Tsushima, but there are many different ways to make your time exploring Ezo and taking on the Yotei Six much easier. Here's all the best skills in Ghost of Yotei, broken down by category.

Best Ghost of Yotei Onryo Skills

Ghost of Yotei's Onyro skills are a fairly limited, generalist set. That said, they're also the skills you'll likely find yourself using the most often, even if their impact is fairly limited or only used in combination with other skills. Even so, there are several skills here worth prioritizing.

• Shifting Strike – When you swap melee weapons, this skill allows you a quick Heavy Attack. Given how often you are going to be swapping weapons, and that Heavy Attacks add Stagger to enemies, this is extremely valuable.
• Block Projectiles – As the name says, this Survival tree skill allows you to block projectiles like arrows and kunai. But not bullets, importantly.
• Chain Assassination Master – The entire Assassination tree is extremely useful, but none of the skills are as useful as Chain Assassination Master and its prerequisites. This final step lets you assassinate up to 3 enemies one after the other, which is incredibly helpful.

As I mentioned in my Ghost of Yotei tips the rock, paper, scissors nature of combat makes that Shifting Strike ability all but essential. Same goes for the Block Projectiles ability, giving you some ranged protecting in the thick of a fight. And, if you want to avoid fighting all together that Chain Assassination Master lets you stealth areas far more efficiently.

Best Ghost of Yotei Melee Skills

As you might expect, the Melee group of skills focuses on… Ghost of Yotei's melee weapons. There's a tree dedicated to each major weapon, most of which needs to be unlocked. They're all useful in their own right, and this is easily the chunkiest group, but if you unlock every possible weapon as fast as possible – which we recommend as part of our Ghost of Yotei tips and tricks – here are several that will make your digital life a lot easier.

• Lethal Talons – You can assassinate enemies at midrange with this Kusarigama skill! But it costs Spirit to do.
• Iron Talon – …which Iron Talon completely removes! Assassinations at midrange for free!
• Unstoppable Strikes – The Odachi tree skills are pretty lackluster, all things considered, but this one stops your attacks from being interrupted while using the Odachi and you take less damage. Nice.
• Deflecting Strikes – This Dual Katana tree skill automatically parries Polearms when using Heavy Attacks. Anything with "automatic" in the title is handy, and this one is particularly useful in that it cuts down on the number of buttons you need to mash overall.

While your mileage here will depend on your fighting style and preferences these options will give you a good advantage when used. And increasing your assassination capabilities is always useful.

Best Ghost of Yotei Revenge Skills

The Revenge group of skills is somewhat of a mishmash of stuff that doesn't quite fit elsewhere. What makes this functionally different from the Onyro group? I don't know! But there are still plenty of skills worth investing in here, though several are actually locked behind later story quests.

• Standoff Streak – As it sounds like, this Attacks tree skill increases the number of enemies you can take on during a Standoff by 1. Any essentially free kills (you still have to pass a quicktime event of sorts) are worth their weight in gold, and so is this skill.
• Hostile Intuition – This entire Survival tree is initially locked to a story quest, but it's worth investing in the moment it does unlock. Hostile Intuition specifically outlines nearby enemies in red after listening in.
• Ghost Stance – This Attack tree skill is unlocked through the main story, but when it does unlock it'll quickly become part of your main arsenal as you can enter a bloody frenzy where you strike down several enemies once you've hit a significant kill streak.

While these are an odd mix of skills they're all extremely useful, with both Standoff Streak and Ghost Stance upping your lethal capabilities significantly. While Hostile Intuition just give you a good advantage generally. With some things locked behind the later story quests thought, you'll can expect to access them towards the longer end of the spectrum with regards to how long Ghost of Yotei lasts.

Best Ghost of Yotei Wolf Skills

To unlock the other sets of Wolf skills require Atsu to complete Ghost of Yotei wolf dens out in the world. For each Wolf Den completed, you can add another skill here. The best skill – which lets you summon the wolf wherever, whenever – is locked behind completing all of the Wolf Dens, but there are still a couple of very good ones to aim for.

• Wolf Assassination – Near the top of the Combat tree, this skill lets the wolf take part in assassinations or critical strikes. In effect, you either assassinate or critically strike another enemy in total. Combined with other assassination skills, this one is great.
• Wolf's Call – Part of the Summon tree, this skill specifically lets you summon the wolf near Yotei Six Camps. Given the wolf needs to be present for various other skills to fire, it's extremely useful.

If you want the best from you wolf, you need these options. Simple as. They might not be the easiest options to get but it's worth the effort.

© GamesRadar+. Not to be reproduced without permission.