What are the best Stellar Blade skills? Shift Up’s Naytiba-slashing sci-fi RPG has more than its fair share of flashy abilities to unlock and important upgrades to help Eve survive – but which will serve you best when you’re initially starting out?
Fortunately, we’re here to help you choose where to invest your valuable SP during the RPG’s opening hours. Stellar Blade starts you off with three skill trees – Attack, Beta, and Survival. Considering the space game shares many similarities with some of the best soulslike games when it comes to the fundamentally reactive nature of its combat, our recommendations won’t come as a surprise if you’re a souls savant. But enough chit-chat, let’s get into it.
The best Stellar Blade skills to pick first are:
- Perfect Dodge
- Blink
- Beta Energy Recharge I & II (Attack)
- Threat Detection
- Beta Energy Recharge I & II (Perfect Parry)
- Shield Breaker
- Fragmentation
- Focus Boost
- Reflex Boost
- Quadruplet
Perfect Dodge (1 SP)
The two core pillars of Stellar Blade’s combat are its Perfect Dodge and Perfect Parry abilities. While some attacks can be parried, others have to be dodged. As such, the first pick of the bunch is both the most obvious and the most important. The cherry on top is successfully performing a Perfect Dodge will allow you to get in an extra attack with Triangle, punishing your opponent for daring to strike at you.
Blink (1 SP)
The Stellar Blade bosses aren’t the only enemies you’ll face on your journey that are capable of unleashing fatal attacks. If Perfect Dodge is the most important skill to acquire, then Blink is easily the second. With Blink unlocked, not only can you completely avoid a deadly attack, but you’ll also stun your foe after teleporting behind them – it’s nothing personal, kid. Of course, you’ll have to get the timing down, but by default Blink offers up a generous activation window.
Beta Energy Recharge I & II (Attack) (3 SP)
Beta Energy makes the world go round – at least when it comes to Stellar Blade’s early game. This incredibly valuable resource is, as its name implies, what allows you to unleash devastating Beta attacks on the Naytiba.
As Beta skills are so much more powerful than your basic attacks, it’s best to think of your light and heavy strikes as mini batteries for your super death strikes of doom – at least that’s what we like to call them. By investing in Beta Energy Recharge I & II at your earliest convenience, you’ll amp up the charging power of your early game kit, which by extension allows you to progress to the meat of Stellar Blade’s story faster. It’s basic math, baby.
Threat Detection (2 SP)
We hope you enjoyed your brief trip to the Attack tree – that’s the last you’ll be seeing of it in this guide. Back to the Survival tree we go because Eve is what? A survivor, exactly.
We’ve already stressed the importance of Blink, and while it does have a pretty generous window at its base level, it’s easy to desync from the flow of battle when your back’s against the wall. This is why we’d recommend taking Threat Detection next, as it makes using both Blink and Repulse much easier.
‘But, PCGamesN, why aren’t you suggesting I get Repulse?’ Why am I only getting half the value from this skill?’ Well, dear reader, we’re glad you asked. You see, enemies that let you utilize it don’t really pop up in the game’s opening hours – it’s something we were introduced to sometime after arriving in Xion. In our experience, Repulse isn’t worth taking until you’ve gained access to ranged weaponry, even though the push back effect it offers does give you a moment to breathe.
Beta Energy Recharge I & II (Perfect Parry) (3 SP)
We’re not going to repeat our ‘woo yeah Beta Energy’ spiel, and it should be pretty clear what Beta Energy Recharge I & II (Perfect Parry) achieves. In Stellar Blade, you’re going to be Perfect Parrying basic attacks and enemy combos more often than you’ll be pulling off Perfect Dodges – it’s very Sekiro in that regard – so getting the most bang for buck (Beta for block) out of each one is incredibly important.
With Beta Energy Recharge upgrades acquired for basic attacks and Perfect Parry, you should now see a considerable increase in the frequency with which you can dish out the pain using Beta attacks.
Shield Breaker (1SP)
Speaking of Beta attacks, it’s time to put all of that pent up energy to good use. You’ll automatically unlock both Slash and Triplet during Stellar Blade’s early game. Though these are excellent single and multi-target options that will serve you well, they won’t be nearly as effective when you come up against a shielded enemy… you see where we’re going with this.
For a measly 1 SP – pocket change what with all those Naytiba you’ve been chopping up – Shield Breaker will not only deal a metric ton of damage to enemy shields, but you’ll also stun them. Of the basic Beta attacks, we’d argue Shield Breaker is the most important, especially when it comes to softening up a boss’ defenses.
Fragmentation (2 SP)
Considering how much we’ve just gassed up Shield Breaker, it should come as no surprise that its upgrade path has some exquisite options – Fragmentation being one of them. With this bad boy in your arsenal you’ll not only do a ton of upfront shield damage with Shield Breaker, but for a short time after any other blows you land will chunk more off of those pesky resistances.
Focus Boost (2 SP)
Okay so now back to the attack tr- SIKE, we’re back in Survival mode, and wow do we have the perfect upgrade for you if you haven’t quite gotten down those Perfect Parry timings – say hello to Focus Boost.
Though Shift Up fixed some of the weird parry behavior that was throwing a lot of demo players off in Stellar Blade’s day-one patch, it hasn’t made it so you can spam L1. We’ve already invested so much into making Perfect Parry the perfect power pack for our big-hitting skills, so you should now look to consolidate your booming stocks. Focus Boost makes it easier to Perfect Parry, giving you a slightly more generous window for the skill to register.
Reflex Boost (2 SP)
As Focus Boost perfects the Perfect Parry, so to does Reflex Boost for the Perfect Dodge. In our experience, getting the Perfect Dodge down is an artform in itself, so this skill unlock is an invaluable accompaniment to all of your furious backflipping, sidestepping, and high-pitched screaming after you’ve once again botched evading that one simple boss mechanic that’s killed you 45 times already.
Quadruplet (4 SP)
Good things come in threes, but even better things come in fours – The Beatles, Queen, and Metallica are all great examples of this. When it comes to Stellar Blade, however, the most fearsome foursome comes in the form of the Quadruplet skill.
Though the final stop on our list is a bit of a stretch goal – you’ll have to acquire either Damage Boost or Beta Energy Withdrawal from the Triplet upgrade branch first – Quadruplet is the ultimate single-target nuker, and the skill we made the most liberal use of during our playthrough.
On top of Triplet’s trio of quick jabs, Quadruplet adds a final, furious right hook to the proceedings. While we easily could have placed this higher up on the priority list, the basic Triplet will serve you well. Additionally, skills like Shield Breaker are necessary to maximize its potential against tankier foes, while Focus Boost and Reflex Boost are important when it comes to actually surviving the game’s most challenging encounters. If you’re a bit of a beast when it comes to this style of rhythmic combat, though, then feel free to prioritize Quadruplet over the Boost skills.
And that’s all you need to know about the best Stellar Blade skills to pick first. This starter kit will get you well up to speed with cycling between basic offense, defense, and those all-important Beta attacks. If you’re struggling to get any of these skills down – especially those dodges and parries – make sure you’re making use of the training feature that’s available by pressing Square on a skill in the upgrade menu.