Stellar Blade: Best Skills to unlock first

Stellar Blade just released this week, and with it comes a gigantic set of skills you can unlock spread out over multiple skill trees. I recommend going over it at first in order to see the path you want to take. Below, I'll take you through the best skills to unlock as quickly as you can in order to set yourself up for success.

Now, completionists won't need to pay as much attention as there is a trophy for getting all the skills. Seeing as they'll need them all anyway, it doesn't matter in which order they are unlocked other than minimizing difficulty a little bit during their playthrough. Others, however, also can reset their trees whenever they want using an item procured for almost nothing at 200 gold.

Skill - Ambush - Attack tree. You can unlock this pretty much right away at the first camp. It's a stealth attack skill that lets you insta-kill enemies from behind in one shot. Of course, you will need to walk slowly and remain undetected to do so. This also works from above as you jump down on enemies Assassin's Creed style.

Skill - Beta Energy Attack - Attack tree. Beta Energy attacks in Stellar Blade requires a certain amount of charged energy. Unlocking this skill lets you build up the energy simply by attacking enemies. Every single hit you land recharges the Beta and lets you unleash special attacks once charged. Leveling this up lets you fire off special attacks every few basic attacks and really amps up your game (pun intended).

Skill - Focus Boost - Survival tree. This skill is mandatory. You may even want to get this first although I listed it third. This extends the time that Eve has in order to perfect parry attacks. It's not a long amount of time by default, but it isn't little either. It seems to be in the middle compared to other games, but adding this extra time helps a lot. You can do one for dodges as well called Reflex Boost. I didn't really use this much as I was focused on parrying in order to stay close and didn't use most of the jump / counter attack skills after I unlocked them.

Skill - Triplet - Beta tree. This is one of the special Beta energy attacks and the first one you get by default. It's a three-pronged attack by its name and staggers the enemy while ignoring any shields they may have. Throw a skill point in here in order to upgrade it to a fourth attack that basically is guaranteed on all but really high end enemies (hardly any in fact) to set them up for the game's fatal blow-esque retribution attack.

Skill - Slash - Beta Tree. Another energy attack, Slash helped me A LOT during my play so far. It generates a force field of swords around Eve that protect her and help her from becoming overwhelmed. They swirl around you and attack enemies on all sides so you don't become encumbered from multiple enemies while attacking the one in front of you. My favorite part about this is that the enemies also get stunned. Most of the time I would take out an enemy only to turn around and see one set up for the retribution attack just from the Slash swords alone. It's a great skill that you should pick up right away.

There are a few centered around dodging rather than parrying, but my playstyle didn't call for them that often to be honest. One honorable mention I liked was the Lightning Rush. If you aren't in combat yet, it let's you charge at enemies and get a free shot in almost to start. It's an attack tree skill that I used several times to help get closer to enemies I knocked far away. To be fair, it's probably more useful than I thought, but there are so many skills I didn't use it to often after just kind of forgetting it was there.

Stellar Blade is out now exclusively on PS5 and is a definite recommended pickup. How are you enjoying it so far? Let us know below.