Best Skills to Level up First in Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Skills are referred to as Masteries in Assassin’s Creed Shadows and both Naoe and Yasuke have their unique Mastery trees for various weapons and skill trees. If you’re looking to use your Mastery Points efficiently, here are the best skills to level up first in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

How to Unlock More Masteries

You unlock Mastery Points by leveling up and performing certain activities such as assassinating Samurai Daisho while looting castles. You’ll unlock these naturally as you play along but Mastery tiers are locked behind how much knowledge you have. You need to increase your Knowledge Level by accumulating Knowledge Points before you unlock the next tier for each Mastery Tree.

You can increase your Knowledge Rank by completing events such as collecting Lost Pages, Praying, Kuji Kiri, Horse Archery, and other activities marked on your map with bright orange icons. You can check how many Knowledge points you need for the next tier from the bottom left of your Inventory screen.

How to Reset Mastery Points

You can reset Mastery Points at any time in the Mastery Menu by holding the X/Square button on your controller or the R key if using a mouse and keyboard. This will deallocate all of your invested Mastery Points for Yasuke or Naoe. You can do this whenever you want, so don’t hesitate to invest in certain weapon mastery trees and try them out on the fly.

Best Naoe Skills to Level Up First in Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Since Naoe’s playstyle is all about stealth and assassinations, you want to prioritize skills that let her sneak past enemies and assassinate them efficiently first. However, be sure to unlock a few crucial combat skills.

Here are all the best Naoe skills to unlock first:

• Smoke Bomb: This can get you out of sticky situations or blind enemies before you charge in.
• Shinobi Bell: The Shinobi Bell is mandatory for anyone focusing on stealth as it can distract guards and isolate targets.
• Larger Tool Bag: Increase the amount of Shinobi Tools you can carry such as Kunais and Bells.
• Assassination Damage: As you progress, enemy health will increase. This skill will increase your Assassination Damage to ensure that it continues to be a one-hit kill.
• Grab Assassinate: The grab assassinate skill is incredibly useful as it lets you move enemies into bushes instead of killing them out in the open.
• Double Assassinate: Guards will often be on dual patrols so this skill has a lot more value than you might initially assume.
• Tidal Wave: Naoe lacks good Katana skills early on in AC Shadows. The Tidal Wave upgrade is a dash attack that leaves your target vulnerable a while afterward. This makes combat encounters a lot easier.
• Dodge Attack: The Dodge Attack lets you perform follow-up dodges with attacks with minimum delay ensuring that you can remain on the offensive instead of getting overwhelmed.

Best Yasuke Skills to Level Up First in Assassin’s Creed Shadows

When playing as Yasuke you want to get skills that let you utilize his ranged arsenal or maximize his damage potential as a melee bruiser. Invest into either the Teppo or Bow as your ranged option and the Samurai tree will be your best friend for both the Long Katana and Naginata. Here are the best Yasuke skills to unlock first:

• Brutal Assassination: Yasuke can’t perform assassinations by default so this mastery should be a priority.
• Link Attack: The Link Attack lets you swap between your weapons on the fly, allowing you to perform heavy-hitting combos.
• Larger Pouch: If you plan on using ranged weapons this is a priority upgrade.
• Sheathed Attack: The Sheathed Attack is much faster than charged attacks and can quickly break enemy guards.
• Energizing Defense: This turns Yasuke into a bruiser as he can now riposte enemies to gain HP. Depending on how good you are at parrying, this will make sure you never run out of HP.
• Impenetrable Defense: A powerful skill that guarantees you 20 seconds of invulnerability against regular attacks. You can use it to go on the offensive and clean up large groups.
• Silent Arrows: A great upgrade for the bow that lets you become even deadlier with your sneak arrow shots to clear out enemies before charging in.
• Clear Mind: Make the bow more useful at close range by slowing time and launching a flurry of arrows.

Those are the best skills you should unlock and master first in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. For more guides, learn when you unlock Yasuke and how to complete the Tea Ceremony quest.