Best early Mastery Skills in Assassin's Creed Shadows (2025)

The best early skills for Naoe in Assassin's Creed Shadows.

Picking the best early Mastery Skills in Assassin's Creed Shadows can help you defeat enemies quicker and stealthier, while adding even more fun tools and abilities to play with.

While playstyles may differ between people and playthroughs, there are some very useful Skills that suit all types of Assassin's Creed Shadows players that we recommend you unlock in the early hours of the game.

This page covers our overall picks for the best early Skills in Assassin's Creed Shadows, but we also have individual sections on the best Katana, Tools, Shinobi, and Assassin Mastery Skills as well.

Please note that this page only covers the best early Skills for Naoe, as you play as her for a large chunk of time in the beginning of the game before you're able to switch back to Yasuke again.

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Best early Mastery Skills in Assassin's Creed Shadows

There are four Mastery Skill trees that you can spend your Mastery Points on in the early hours of playing as Naoe in Assassin's Creed Shadows: Katana, Tools, Shinobi, and Assassin.

Each of these skill trees focuses on a different playstyle, but rather than doubling-down on just one type of gameplay, we recommend you mix-and-match the skills from different the trees to create a versatile (and fun!) early game build.

That said, respecing in free in Shadows, so you don't have to worry too much about picking the perfect skill set at the beginning while you're still getting used to everything else. However, for a smoother start, there are some skills that we recommend picking over others.

With all this in mind, here's our picks for the best early Mastery Skills in Assassin's Creed Shadows:

• Tidal Wave (Katana) - An extremely fast strike dealing 25% ability damage and making the enemy Vulnerable.
• Smoke Bomb (Tools) - Throw a smoke bomb and break all lines of sight.
• Shinobi Bell (Tools) - Throw a Shinobi Bell that distracts nearby enemies.
• Shallow Water Breathing (Shinobi) - Allows Naoe to breathe through a reed while remaining still in shallow water.
• Grab Assassinate (Shinobi) - After grabbing an enemy, press the required button to Assassinate them.
• Double Assassination (Assassin) - While using Tanto, Naoe can Assassinate two targets standing close together with a single attack.
• Executioner (Assassin) - Increase damage on vulnerable enemies by 2%.

While straight damage boosts can be helpful, almost all of the skills listed above are brilliant for either getting out of a sticky situation (hello, Smoke Bombs and Grab Assassinate), or making stealth encounters a lot easier and fun to take part in (nice to meet you, Shinobi Bell and Double Assassination).

Then there's Tidal Wave, which is the most useful attack ability in the early game, as you don't need to be a pro at dodging or parrying to make use of the Vulnerable state it puts enemies in. Even though it's in the Assassin tree, the Executioner Skill also pairs well with Tidal Wave, as it's another easy way to boost your damage passively.

If you'd prefer to focus on just one playstyle in the beginning, keep reading for our recommendations on the best Mastery Skills to unlock across the Katana, Tools, Shinobi, and Assassin trees.

Best early Katana Mastery Skills in Assassin's Creed Shadows

Here's our picks for the best early Katana Mastery Skills in Assassin's Creed Shadows:

• Tidal Wave - An extremely fast strike dealing 25% ability damage and making the enemy Vulnerable.
• Melee Expert - Increase damage with Melee Weapons by 2%.
• Affliction Effectiveness - Increase damage on Afflicted Enemies (Bleed, Poison, Daze) by 2%.

We recommend Tidal Wave above everything else in the Katana tree, as it's a super easy way to inflict the Vulnerable effect on enemies. Melee Expert is just a general good skill if you're fighting with your Katana a lot, and Affliction Effectiveness can boost your damage even more if you happen to have a build that regularly inflicts Bleed, Poison, or Daze.

Best early Tools Mastery Skills in Assassin's Creed Shadows

Here's our picks for the best early Tools Mastery Skills in Assassin's Creed Shadows:

• Smoke Bomb - Throw a smoke bomb and break all lines of sight.
• Shinobi Bell - Throw a Shinobi Bell that distracts nearby enemies.
• Quick Throw - Hold and press the required buttons to automatically throw the equipped tool at the closest enemy or object.
• Larger Tool Bag I - Increase maximum capacity for all tools by one (Kunai, Shuriken, Smoke Bomb, Shinobi Bell).

Out of all of these, we recommend the Smoke Bomb and Shinobi Bell Skills over the rest, as they're very useful stealth items to add to your build.

Also, if you like using the Smoke Bombs a lot, then we recommend unlocking the Enduring Haze Skill soon after, as it increases your Smoke Bombs duration by 10 seconds. The same goes for your Shinobi Bell, as the Golden Bell Skill can attract enemies from even further, although you need Knowledge Rank 3 to unlock Golden Bell.

Best early Shinobi Mastery Skills in Assassin's Creed Shadows

Here's our picks for the best early Shinobi Mastery Skills in Assassin's Creed Shadows:

• Grab Assassinate - After grabbing an enemy, press the required button to Assassinate them.
• Shallow Water Breathing - Allows Naoe to breathe through a reed while remaining still in shallow water.
• Igan Roll - Press the required button before hitting the ground to reduce fall damage.

Igan Roll is a general great Skill to have if you tend to take a lot of fall damage while out exploring, but it's not as useful as the other two Skills mentioned above. Grab Assassinate is an especially good pick because it's an almost instant kill. As you can only do a long choke after grabbing an enemy at the beginning of the game, a speedier kill can help you stay in unnoticed.

Best early Assassin Mastery Skills in Assassin's Creed Shadows

Here's our picks for the best early Assassin Mastery Skills in Assassin's Creed Shadows:

• Double Assassination - While using Tanto, Naoe can Assassinate two targets standing close together with a single attack.
• Shoji Door Assassination - While using a Katana, Naoe can Assassination a target through a shoji panel.
• Executioner - Increase damage on Vulnerable enemies by 2%.

We've found that Double Assassin is the most useful Skill out of the three above, but Shoji Door Assassination is objectively, inarguably better because it looks cooler. And we all know that's the most important criteria, really.

Hope you're enjoying Assassin's Creed Shadows! If you want even more help, check out our pages on the best skills for Naoe and Yasuke, how to get pets, and Ichiro's Key locations.