5 Best Samurai Skill Tree Upgrades for Yasuke in Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Yasuke’s Samurai Skill Tree boosts his combat prowess with upgrades enhancing defense, damage, and crowd control in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

Yasuke, one of the two protagonists in Assassin’s Creed Shadows, serves as a samurai under Lord Nobunaga Oda. Compared to Naoe, Yasuke has a specialized warrior playstyle. In particular, his Samurai Skill Tree is designed to make Yasuke an unstoppable force as well as an immovable object.

Best Samurai Skill Tree Upgrades in Assassin’s Creed Shadows

There are both active and passive upgrades in the Samurai Skill Tree which can be unlocked using Mastery Points. To unlock higher ranks within the skill tree, you must increase your Knowledge Rank with Yasuke by collecting Knowledge Points. Depending on the choices you make while upgrading the tree, Yasuke can become increasingly tanky, deal heavy single-target damage, and take on hordes of enemies.

1) Impenetrable Defense

Impenetrable Defense is an active skill that allows Yasuke to immediately counter every attack he receives for 20 seconds and up to 5 hits. This means that after activating Impenetrable Defense, you can walk into a crowd of enemies and automatically counter all their normal attacks for 20 seconds.

The skill can be unlocked once you reach Knowledge Rank 3, and can be upgraded with Unbreachable Guard at rank 4, making attackers vulnerable with every counter. Further upgrades increase counter damage by 40% (rank 5) and Absolute Protection (rank 6) works against all unstoppable attacks, except grab attacks.

2) Brutal Assassination

Brutal Assassination gives Yasuke the ability to conduct his flavor of assassinations. This has the potential to instantly kill most weaker enemies. Since most missions in the game allow for stealth approaches, you can use Brutal Assassination to take down several opponents before the fight begins.

Brutal Assassination is unlocked at Knowledge Rank 1 and can be improved further with several upgrades higher up the skill tree. Improved Brutal Assassination (rank 2) unlocks its use against large enemies. Assassination Damage I (rank 3) and Assassination Damage II (Rank 5) increase assassination damage by 2 additional Health Segments each.

3) Bull Rush

Bull Rush upgrades Yasuke’s sprint to break down some doors and knock back enemies. This passive skill turns Yasuke into a human wrecking ball, allowing him to plow through groups of enemies and demolish barriers.

Upgrading the skill further will make the samurai a true juggernaut. Crash Collision (rank 2) adds 30% ability damage on contact while increasing Bull Rush damage by 40%. Big Impact (rank 3) adds 60% to Bull Rush damage and has its full effect on large enemies.

4) War Kick

The Spartan kick from Assassin’s Creed Odyssey has been passed down to Yasuke and is more fun than ever. War Kick deals 28% ability damage while ragdolling smaller enemies and briefly taking them out of the fight.

War Kick’s full damage can be delivered to large enemies with the Heavy Impact upgrade (rank 2), which also boosts overall damage by 40%. The final upgrade, Defensive Breach (rank 3), has Yasuke kicking like a raging mule, causing 100% more damage on enemy collisions.

5) Battle Cry

Unlocked at Knowledge Rank 3, Battle Cry imbues Yasuke with the fury of a war god. Activating Battle Cry staggers all enemies within 10 meters of you, allowing you to cut through them unhindered as they regain their bearings. Its following upgrades on the highest branches of the Samurai Skill Tree make Battle Cry incredibly powerful at taking on large groups of enemies.

Outnumbered (rank 4) scales your damage with the number of enemies you’re fighting, increasing damage by 4% for 10 seconds for every enemy affected. Healing Shout (rank 5) allows Battle Cry to restore 50% of maximum Health over 10 seconds. Once fully upgraded, Battle Cry staggers all enemies in Yasuke’s vicinity, increases his damage, and restores half of his HP bar.

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We provide the latest news and create guides for Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Meanwhile, you can check out the following AC Shadows articles or catch us playing games on Twitch and YouTube:

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