Best Naoe builds and masteries in Assassin's Creed Shadows
Here's how to create the best build for Naoe
Wondering what the best build is for Naoe in Assassin's Creed Shadows? Naoe is the playable ninja character of Assassin's Creed Shadows, with a skillset that emphasis deadly stealth manoeuvres and a wide variety of techniques to eviscerate opponents. If you want to go the traditional route and max out your katana, Naoe's your girl. If you'd rather go with something more dramatic and knock enemies off their feet with a kusarigama swing, Naoe's also your girl.
In this guide, we'll outline the best Naoe Mastery skills you should be prioritising in Assassin's Creed Shadows.
Assassin's Creed Shadows: Best Naoe skills
Naoe has access to six Mastery trees, listed below. You can unlock skills within each tree by spending Mastery Points, which are gained by leveling up, as well as killing Targets and Samurai Daisho.
However, you can only access the upper rows of each Mastery tree by increasing your Knowledge Rank. Knowledge Ranks are gained by exploring the world and taking on side objectives.
Resetting Masteries can be done at any time from each Mastery tree menu, so don't be afraid to experiment and see what works for you. Here are the six Mastery trees:
Best Katana Skills
The katana is the curved Japanese sword that we all know and love. While I tend to go with Naoe's other weapons - katanas feel a little too generic to me, and I think of them as more of a samurai weapon than a shinobi's - there are great options here for reliable melee build.
The best katana skills are:
- Tidal Wave → Second Wave → Third Wave
- Counter Attack → Swift Step → Hardened
- Dodge Attack → Generator → No Mercy
Tidal Wave → Second Wave → Third Wave
Tidal Wave (Knowledge Rank 1 required) is Naoe's starting katana skill, letting her swoosh forwards and deal 25% ability damage, making the enemy Vulnerable.
You'll probably use Tidal Wave a lot starting out, and once you upgrade it to Second Wave (Knowledge Rank 3 required) you can chain Tidal Wave twice in a row. Its final form, Third Wave (Knowledge Rank 6 required) lets you chain three times, which means you can potentially destroy a triad of foes in one swift moment.
Counter Attack → Swift Step → Hardened
Deflecting is a key skill to master when it comes to surviving combat in Assassin's Creed Shadows. Counter Attack (Knowledge Rank 2 required) makes your deflections more effective by adding in a strike.
Once you've mastered your counters, upgrade to Swift Step (Knowledge Rank 4 required) to perform Counter Attack on flurry attacks, and finish things off with Hardened (Knowledge Rank 6 required), which lets you do Counter Attack on unstoppable attacks. No boss will be able to hit you, as long as your timing is good.
Dodge Attack → Generator → No Mercy
If you don't like deflecting, dodging is the other way to avoid attacks. I rely on dodging with Naoe a lot, so Dodge Attack (Knowledge Rank 4 required), which launches a counter-attack after a dodge and propels you back towards the enemy, was a no-brainer.
Generator (Knowledge Rank 2 required) improves this by generating 25% of an Adrenaline Chunk on a successful Dodge Attack, and No Mercy makes a target Vulnerable on a successful Dodge Attack.
Best Kusarigama Skills
My personal favourite weapon for Naoe, the kusarigama consists of a sickle on a metal rod with a chain-attached weight on the end. Not only does this weapon look cool, but it's a brutally effective form of crowd-control.
The best kusarigama skills are:
- Feral Outburst → Exposed Wound → Feral Frenzy
- Snake Bite → Hard Fall → Knock Out
- Cyclone Blast → Lasting Storm → Enhanced Impact
Feral Outburst → Exposed Wound → Feral Frenzy
Feral Outburst (Knowledge Rank 1 required) launches Naoe forwards, unleashing four strikes against an enemy that deal 20% ability damage each. This is a great way to open up a battle and perfect if you like a tornado of quick blows.
Exposed Wound (Knowledge Rank 2 required) elevates Ferak Outburst by making the target Vulnerable during the last strike, and Feral Frenzy makes Feral Outburst unleash two extra attacks.
Snake Bite → Hard Fall → Knock Out
Two of the skills on the Kusarigama tree revolve around disorientating foes with your chain whip. The first is Entanglement, and the second is Snake Bite (Knowledge Rank 4 required), which is the better choice in my opinion, since it knocks enemies over and deals 40% ability damage.
Hard Fall (Knowledge Rank 5 required) makes the enemy afflicted by Daze when they stand back up, and Knock Out bumps the knockdown duration up by 10 seconds. This is a useful skill for destabilising bosses and incapicating higher level enemies in the middle of a multi-person brawl.
Cyclone Blast → Lasting Storm → Enhanced Impact
Here's the crowd-control skill I was talking about earlier - Cyclone Blast (Knowledge Rank 3 required) makes Naoe whirl her kusarigama around her in an arc, dealing 8% ability damage per hit and pushing everyone back. Lasting Storm (Knowledge Rank 4 required) makes Cyclone Blast perform 4 additional swings, while Enhanced Impact (Knowledge Rank 6 required) makes the last hit push enemies back further.
All these skills are perfect for getting guards off of your back, and if you invest in this skill path, I recommend also taking the Multi-Target Expert (Knowledge Rank 3 required) passive skill, which increases damage when hitting multiple foes by 3%.
Best Tanto Skills
The tanto is the equivalent of Naoe's tactical knife, and my second favourite weapon in her arsenal. Used for quick pokes in conjunction with Naoe's extendable assassin's blade, careful utilisation of the Tanto will let you perform jumps and backstabs in the middle of combat.
The best tanto skills are:
- Leap Strike → Escape Strike → Blood Rush
- Shadow Barrage → Endless Barrage → Contemplation
- Backstab → Back Breaker → Healthy Sting
Leap Strike → Escape Strike → Blood Rush
I like being able to hop around while fighting, and Leap Strike (Knowledge Rank 1 required) lets me do just that as Naoe closes the distance between herself and a foe with a jumping attack.
Escape Strike (Knowledge Rank 2 required) reverses this with a strike and a backward dodge, while Blood Rush (Knowledge Rank 3 required) generates 25% of an Adrenaline Chunk whenever you hit with Leap Strike or Escape Strike.
Shadow Barrage → Endless Barrage → Contemplation
Shadow Barrage (Knowledge Rank 2 required) is a pretty awesome skill that makes Naoe perform an auto-evade before getting hit. This lasts 20 seconds and works for up to 7 hits, but not on Grab attacks.
Endless Barrage (Knowledge Rank 4 required) ups the ante by increasing the damage of every kill when Shadow Barrage is active by 5%. Finally, Contemplation (Knowledge Rank 5 required) increases Shadow Barrage's duration by either 10 seconds or up to 3 additional hits, going a long way towards making you temporarily unstoppable on the battlefield.
Backstab → Back Breaker → Healthy Sting
Backstab (Knowledge Rank 2 required) turns any Light Posture attacks that hit an enemy's back into a Weak Point attack - basically the equivalent of a critical hit. This is super handy when you're sneaking around or flipping over a target. Back Breaker (Knowledge Rank 3 required) grants 100% Armor Piercing to Posture attacks performed behind a foe, and Healthy Sting (Knowledge Rank 6 required) makes your Backstab restore 5% health.
If you're going down this skill path, be sure to grab the Backstabber passive, which amplifies all damage from behind by 2%.
Best Tools Skills
For a ninja to succeed on an assassination mission, it's all about the tools of the trade - smoke bombs, shurikens, etc. If you invest in this skill tree, I recommend that aside from the skills below, you also grab the Larger Tool Bag I and Larger Tool Bag II passives, depending on whether you find yourself running out of tools regularly while on a mission.
The best tools skills are:
- Smoke Bomb → Enduring Haze → Widespread
- Kunai Assassination Damage I → Kunai Assassination Damge II → Kunai Assassination Damage III
- Shinobi Bell → Golden Bell → Louder Chimes
Smoke Bomb → Enduring Haze → Widespread
Use Smoke Bomb (Knowledge Rank 1 required) to mask your tracks. With a well-timed bomb, you can completely obscure yourself in the resulting mist and assassinate a foe simply by walking in front of them. This is also a helpful tool for escaping overwhelming fights with opponents who are higher level than you.
Upgrade your bomb potency with Enduring Haze (Knowledge Rank 2 required) to make the smoke last 10 seconds longer, then use Widespread (Knowledge Rank 4 required) to make its radius increase to 10 metres.
Kunai Assassination Damage I → Kunai Assassination Damge II → Kunai Assassination Damage III
When it comes to throwing projectiles, you have your choice between two trees - Kunai (available at the start of the game) and Shuriken. It's up to you - the kunai skills are stronger and more effective in assassination, so I've highlighted them here. But the shuriken skills, which let you bounce ninja stars off of multiple opponents, are arguably more fun.
At any rate, since this is a guide on the 'best' skills for Naoe, I've highlighted Kunai Assassination Damage I (Knowledge Rank 2 required) here, followed by Kunai Assassination Damage II (Knowledge Rank 4 required) and Kunai Assassination Damage III (Knowledge Rank 6 required). Each tier removes an additional health segment from any enemy you hit.
Shinobi Bell → Golden Bell → Louder Chimes
Distracting enemies on a tense infiltration mission is important, and sometimes you can't get folks to look the way you want them to. Shinobi Bell (Knowledge Rank 2 required) is a very good solution, as lets you toss a noise-maker that'll attract foes to the vicinity.
To amplify the range of the noise, take the passives Golden Bell (Knowledge Rank 3 required), which attracts enemies from father away, and Louder Chimes, which increases the bell's radius to 5 metres.
Best Shinobi Skils
At first it might seem like the shinobi and assassin Mastery trees are redundant. The difference is that the shinobi skills revolve a tad more around infiltration and destabilising enemies, while the assassin skills are all about killing in the traditional Assassin's Creed manner.
The best shinobi skills are:
- Grab → Grab Assassinate → Quick Knock Out
- Lightning Kicks → Immobilized → Sweep The Leg
- Vault → Destabilizing Vault → High Vault
Grab → Grab Assassinate → Quick Knock Out
There's nothing like using Grab (available at the start of the game) to get your hands on a target from behind. You can move with them if you like (using them as a makeshift shield) or maintain your squeeze until they pass out. I use this a lot whenever I'm trying to sneak through a castle.
Grab Assassinate (Knowledge Rank 2 required) lets you stab anyone you have grabbed quickly instead of waiting for them to pass out. And Quick Knock Out (Knowledge Rank 5 required) lets you perform this succession of moves even swifter.
Lightning Kicks → Immobilized → Sweep The Leg
As I mentioned before, I like leaning into a speedy playstyle with Naoe, leaping as much as possible and using swift moves with the kusarigama and tanto to get the drop on enemies. Lightning Kicks (Knowledge Rank 3 required) helps out, especially when I'm surrounded, by letting me knock down the two closest enemies and deal 15% ability damage to each.
Immobilized (Knowledge Rank 4 required) increases the knockdown duration by 4 seconds, and Sweep the Leg (Knowledge Rank 6 required) lets you do an additional leg sweep on a target who isn't already knocked down. (Honestly, as someone who played Mortal Kombat growing up, any skill entitled 'Sweep the Leg' gets automatic attention from me!)
Vault → Destabilizing Vault → High Vault
If Lightning Kicks weren't enough, Vault (Knowledge Rank 2 required) is even better, letting you jump over an enemy after deflecting an attack. Combine this with the Tanto skill Backstab for an extremely effective way to do major damage in one fell swoop.
Destabilzing Vault (Knowledge Rank 3 required) and High Vault (Knowledge Rank 5 required) are both great follow-up passives; the former increases your Critical Chance by 25% over 10 seconds after using Vault, and the latter makes you toss a shuriken mid-air after vaulting.
Best Assassin Skills
Naoe (and Yasuke, for that matter) share connections with the titular Assassins who have dominated this franchise since the getgo, though these links aren't as obvious from the beginning as they are in some other AC games. But the assassin Mastery tree offers up skills that should feel familiar to anyone who's ever used a dagger attached to a gauntlet to take down a target in the past. The skills here are more standalone and less interconnected than in other Mastery trees.
The best assassin skills are:
- Assassination Damage I → Assassination Damage II → Assassination Damage III
- Reinforced Blade → Hand of the Creed
- Rush Assassinate
Assassination Damage I → Assassination Damage II → Assassination Damage III
The Hidden Blade (available at the start of the game) will be one of your most-used skills throughout Assassin's Creed Shdows, so go on and max out its output by taking Assassination Damage I (Knowledge Rank 2 required), Assassination Damage II (Knowledge Rank 4 required), and Assassination Damage III (Knowledge Rank 3 required). Each of these removes an additional health segment from an enemy whenever you assassinate them.
The Hidden Blade skill branch offers two alternate options if you don't want to invest in pure damage. These are excellent in their own right and are as follows:
Reinforced Blade → Hand of the Creed
It's a real pain in the rear when Hidden Blade falters against larger enemies, which is often at the start of the game. Reinforced Blade (Knowledge Rank 3 required) circumvents this entirely, and Hand of the Creed (Knowledge Rank 5 required) goes one better, letting you just charge up at folks and kill them with your Hidden Blade even if they see you coming.
Be aware that both of these skills (and in fact the entire Hidden Blade skill tree) are rendered redundant if you've turned on Guaranteed Assassinations in the menu, which lets you always insta-kill enemies. If you prefer a challenge, however, you probably haven't touched that option.
Rush Assassinate
Last but not least is Rush Assassinate (Knowledge Rank 5 required), a standalone passive that lets you latch your kusarigama on a target and instantly pull yourself to them to deal assassination damage. This isn't only a cool-looking attack ability, it's also excellent for mobility.
If you're more of a tanto user who likes double kills, you could alternately choose Double Assassinate, which requires Knowledge Rank 2 and lets you assassinte two targets standing close together with a single attack. In my opinion, though, Rush Assassinate is more useful, and worth saving up towards.
That completes our guide for the best Naoe Master skills - hopefully these tips have helped you build her into the true epitome of a shinobi. If you're wondering how to switch to Yasuke in Assassin's Creed Shadows, see our guide on how to change characters. We've also got resources on how to use photo mode and the Animus Hub, the new launcher for all future Assassin's Creed games.