Best Skills to Get First - Stellar Blade Guide - IGN (2024)

From the get-go, Stellar Blade throws a lot of terms and a huge Skill Tree your way, which can be quite overwhelming. Thankfully, we've compiled a list of the best skills we recommend getting first in Stellar Blade to help cut through the noise and prioritize unlocking only the most useful skills as early as possible.

Before we start, keep in mind that to reset your Skill Tree in Stellar Blade, you will first need to obtain an SP Initializer, which is a unique item that can be purchased from vending machines at Supply Camps or when visiting certain stores such as Sisters’ Junk in Xion for 200 Gold.

Once you've obtained an SP Initializer, visit a Skill Tree terminal and navigate to the specific Skill Tree you wish to reset. When you’re ready, press Triangle and a prompt will appear, asking if you would like to reset your Skill Tree.

Lastly, Blink, the skill that lets you counter blue unblockable attacks, is one of the most important skills you unlock in Stellar Blade. But it’s automatically added to your move list as the story progresses, so we aren’t including it here despite its importance.

Having trouble with Stellar Blade’s rather challenging combat system? Why not check out our comprehensive combat guide for 19 Essential Combat Tips and Tricks.

Best Skills to Unlock First in Stellar Blade

Ambush

Ambush, found in the top left quadrant of the Attack tree, allows you to stealth kill enemies in one hit from behind. This is a great way to work around troublesome Naytibas, and you can even develop Exospines to make this easier and grant extra perks after an Ambush. You won’t always be able to use Ambush, but it's the kind of skill where, when the opportunity presents itself, you’ll be glad to have it.

Being able to kill a tough enemy before it gets a chance to fight back and potentially damage you is a huge boon in a game with limited health restoratives. Continuing along this branch allows you to extend the attack to nearby enemies and collect more beta energy.

Lightning Rush and Infinite Rush

Holding Triangle to dash to an enemy and attack is paramount to success in Stellar Blade. Lightning Rush and Infinite Rush are both improved versions of the base skill, Rush, which further increases the base skill's charging distance and attack power. We recommend using it to initiate fights, follow up combo hits that send enemies away from you, and for sticking close to bosses who try to get away from you.

Beta Energy Recharge and Beta Energy Theft

Any skill that grants extra Beta Energy is helpful, and the Beta Energy Recharges on both the Survival and Attack Skill Trees give you increased Beta Energy with every Perfect Parry or successful attack, respectively.

Unlocking the Beta Energy Recharge from the Survival Skill Tree also gives you a great excuse to get familiar with Perfect Parries, a vital mechanic you’ll want to learn early. With that said, both are excellent skills to have unlocked.

Pairing the Beta Energy Theft skill from the Attack Skill Tree with Ambush further stacks the deck in your favor, especially when taking a group of enemies by surprise. One scenario could be to take out the Naytiba you find most troublesome, which will charge your most powerful Beta Skills in the meantime.

Counter I and II

Counter, found at the top of the Survival Skill Tree, is your follow-up to Perfect Parries, allowing you to dash behind enemies for a big attack or even from face-on. Perfect Dodges also has a similar follow-up called Reflection, but for now, you’ll likely be parrying more often than dodging, so we recommend going with Counter first.

Repulse

Blink’s purple counterpart, Repulse, has you flipping away from the enemy rather than going through them. It also opens up yellow glowing weak points that can be targeted with ranged attacks from your wrist-mounted gun. We recommend grabbing this one as soon as possible so you are well prepared for every attack an enemy might throw at you.

Shield Breaker

While its usefulness is more situational than Slash and Triplet, the Beta Skill you start with, Shield Breaker, is a great way to knock out your enemy’s shield so you can begin dealing more extensive damage. Charging the Shield Breaker skill also provides a damage boost, and later upgrades temporarily increase your shield damage after using it and decrease charge time. If you don’t have the Skill Points to spare, you can hold off on upgrading it for now, as it’s good enough by itself early on, but you’ll want to finish out the tree as you progress, as it provides an easy way to knock enemies down.

Focus Boost & Reflex Boost

Stellar Blade relies heavily on your ability to Parry and Dodge enemy attacks, as standard blocking will see you taking minor chip damage. Thankfully, this is where Focus Boost comes in handy, as it extends the Perfect Parry window, allowing you to avoid any unnecessary chip damage and more easily knock enemies off balance for a Retribution Attack.

Reflex Boost extends the window for Perfect Dodges, which you’ll need to avoid yellow unblockable attacks. You can get by without these skills if you want the timing windows to stay difficult, but they’re essential if you want to make combat easier.

Double Dodge

Found at the end of the Survival Skill Tree after Reflex Boost, Double Dodge is useful for increasing the distance between you and an enemy, or when panic dodging. When paired with Reflex Boost, you’ll have two more forgiving windows to hit that Perfect Dodge.

Reflection

Now is an excellent time to grab Reflection, as it provides a follow-up attack for Perfect Dodging. Reflection can be used upon a successful Perfect Dodge, allowing you to counter and stun the enemy while temporarily increasing your attack speed, giving you the upper hand to take advantage.

Now that you have all the base skills you need, it’s time to start putting Skill Points into upgrading your Beta skills, namely Triplet and Slash. These can get costly quickly, so feel free to grab other skills while your pool increases, and then later, just refund them to upgrade Beta skills when you have enough Skill Points.

Triplet Upgrades

Triplet, the Beta Skill set to L1 + Square, does incredible single-target damage, while the third attack will always stun the enemy. We’ve used it to stop an enemy’s attack, only to find that it killed them outright.

For this reason, we recommend upgrading Triplet as soon as possible so you can unlock Quadruplet, which moves the stun attack to the first strike and even affects your enemy’s balance, allowing you to perform a Retribution Attack more quickly.

Slash Upgrades

While Triplet does fantastic single-target damage, Slash launches an energy blade around EVE, dealing AoE damage to any nearby enemies. Not only are enemies damaged, but they’ll also become stunned. Furthermore, the attack can be charged to deal increased damage.

Even in its base form, Slash does a great job taking out smaller enemies surrounding you, but once you upgrade it, it can do more significant damage to shields and even gain a follow-up Slash.

With that, all Beta Skills are useful, with Shield Breaker and Shockwave becoming much more potent with further upgrades due to their ability to knock enemies down, but since we’re covering the best skills to get first, focusing on Triplet and Slash to start is the way to go.