Stellar Blade – best skills to get and unlock early

✓ At a glance

The best skills in Stellar Blade

• The survival tree in Stellar Blade has some excellent skills.
• Your Beta Skills can be further enhanced, increasing how powerful they are.
• Double Dodge, Infinite Rush, Beta Chain, and Counter Chain are stand-out skills, to name a few.

The skill trees in Stellar Blade offer a wider variety of improvements to your movements, attack abilities, and survivability. Naturally, some of these skills are better than others, so we’re picking out what we think are the best skills to get in Stellar Blade that will be the most beneficial to you. They certainly helped us get to the end. We’ll cover the best attack skill, the best beta skill, best burst skill, and the best survival skill.

Best Skills to unlock in Stellar Blade

Nearly all the useful skills are immediately available to you when you start the game, but some, like double jump, are locked behind story progression. There are two hidden skill trees in Stellar Blade, one of which is related to a spoiler so we aren’t going into too much detail when it comes to one of these skill trees and the name of the tree, mostly because there’s nothing too important there. Key skills like Ambush are unlocked naturally, which will help you deal with foes quickly.

Beta Chain

Beta Chain is a skill that lets you use a small portion of your Beta energy to enhance the final attack of any combo in combat. This skill is good for interrupting enemies or when you want to be more conservative with your Beta energy. It works with your normal combos and your strong combos, not to mention it looks incredibly stylish when you charge up the final hit using this skill. Grab it and give it a go, if it’s not for you then you can always reset your points. Beta Chain is found in the Attack skill tree.

Counter and Counter Chain

Your mileage may vary with the Counter and Counter Chain skills in Stellar Blade. We prefer to go for a playstyle that rewards perfect parrying, and these two skills enhance that playstyle considerably. After you hit a parry, you can perform a follow-up attack to punish your enemy. Counter has two levels, which improve how much damage you do and the attack you do. Counter Chain further enhances the counterattack with a more powerful ability. Counter Chain can only be unlocked after you get the Burst skill tree. Counter is found in the Survival skill tree, and it’s our pick for the best Survival skill.

Beta Chain will help you do more damage. Image captured by VideoGamer

Counter and Counter Chain improves your parry counterattacks. Image captured by VideoGamer.

Chain Reflection will enhance your Perfect Dodges and let you counter after. Image captured by VideoGamer.

Repulse is a skill that lets you dodge a specific attack some enemies have. Image captured by VideoGamer.

Double Dodge lets you perform a second dodge. Image captured by VideoGamer.

Quadruplet improves Triplet, giving it another attack and dealing more damage. Image captured by VideoGamer.

Cross Wave improves Shock Wave, improving damage and number of hits. Image captured by VideoGamer.

Life Steal works with Tempest to restore HP when you hit enemies with that skill. Image captured by VideoGamer.

Perfect Rush is the final improvement to Rush, increasing damage and how far it teleports you. Image captured by VideoGamer.

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Reflection and Chain Reflection

Similarly to Counter and Counter Chain, Reflection and Chain Reflection are all about improving your perfect dodge. After you get a perfect dodge, you can again follow up with a counterattack and stun the enemy. Chain Reflection lets you use a more powerful counter, but you also need to have unlocked the Burst skill tree for this. Reflection is found in the Survival skill tree.

Repulse

Repulse is arguably a crucial skill to have in your repertoire. It functions similarly to Blink, which the game forces you to unlock early on. Like Blink, your sword will glow a certain colour when you can use Repulse, but instead of dodging into the enemy, dodge away to activate the skill. You will kick off the enemy and expose their weak point. You can then shoot it from afar or close the distance to melee it. Repulse is found in the Survival skill tree. It doesn’t cost much SP to unlock, which is also nice.

Focus Boost

Arguably our favourite skill in the game, simply because it enables our preferred playstyle which is parrying enemy attacks for the style points. Focus Boost is in the Survival tree and it makes it easier to perform a perfect parry. In practice, this skill increases the opportunity you have to have a deflection count as a perfect parry, which is fantastic for builds focusing on that.

Double Dodge

Double Dodge is an extremely useful skill for those who rely on a dodging build for EVE. It functions as you might expect; you can press the Circle button twice in a row to perform a second doge that clears a little bit more distance. While not perfect, it does help with manoeuvrability and getting yourself to safety in a pinch. Double Dodge is found in the Survival skill tree.

Quadruplet and Finishing Blow Increase

Quadruplet is the advanced form of Triplet, the base Beta skill you get at the start of the game. We highly recommend upgrading this skill specifically as Quadruplet adds another attack to the skill and you will greatly increase its damage and it doesn’t cost any extra Beta to use. Finishing Blow is available after you unlock Quadruplet, and this will allow the Triplet/Quadruplet skill to remove one bar of Balance from an enemy. Quadruplet is found in the Beta skill tree. When you start New Game+, this ability can be upgraded further to Infinite Pierce. Quadruplet and Infinite Pierce get our vote for the best Beta skill in the game.

✓ Tip

Beta Energy Withdrawal enhances Beta Skills

As a special shout-out, we want to suggest getting Beta Energy Withdrawal as well. This skill is tied to your main four skills in the Beta tree. You can unlock this skill for Shock Wave, Triplet, Slash, and Shield Breaker. We highly recommend grabbing this ability for the skills you use the most since it restores a small amount of Beta Energy when you use the skill. This creates a great Beta Energy consumption economy, where you can use these attacks more easily. Beta Energy Withdrawl is found four times in the Beta skill tree.

Cross Wave

Similarly to Quadruplet, Cross Wave is the enhanced form of Shock Wave. This skill adds another attack to Shock Wave that will stun them for a bit. As you can imagine, this skill is great at creating openings and can stun enemies and interrupt bosses with ease. After you grab this skill, you should also get the Finishing Blow Increase for Cross Wave, as this will knock enemies down when you hit them with it. When you start New Game+, this ability can be upgraded further to Infinite Wave.

Life Steal

Life Steal restores HP to you when you hit enemies with the Tempest Burst skill. The Burst tree becomes available later in the game and it features incredibly powerful abilities that you can use to devastate your enemies. Tempest is a great AoE attack and giving it the HP recovery is super helpful thanks to Life Steal. You can unlock Life Steal in the Burst skill tree after you unlock it and get Tempest. Naturally, skills that also increase your beta energy recharge and Burst energy are always helpful.

✓ tip

You can take or leave Shield Breaker

For what it’s worth, the Shield Breaker Beta Skill isn’t worth it in our opinion. It does damage to shields, but it is usually better to hit enemies with Quadruplet or Cross Wave.

Infinite Rush

Rush is a core ability you have from the start of the game and it is a great attack that lets you close the distance and pressure your foe. Make sure you also grab Rush Chain and Lightning Chain, along with two more upgrades to Rush, with the final one being Infinite Rush. Infinite Rush gives you more attack power and distance when using Rush, increasing the overall efficacy of the attack.