Ten Things I Wish I Knew When I Started ‘Assassin’s Creed Shadows’

While this may be coming a bit late, without bothering to get a review copy, I started Assassin’s Creed Shadows at the same time as most other people. But given that this is my job, I’ve managed to put 40 hours in already, and I’ve learned a few things. Here are ten things I wish I knew when I started Assassin’s Creed Shadows

1) Check The Castle “Type” Before Invading – You can check which “type” of castle, for Naoe or for Yasuke, the game recommends by looking at its reward, and seeing if its for him or her. A Naoe castle will have more sneaking zones and small entryways, a Yasuke one will have gates to crash and sometimes big boxes to move. However, given how much of a combat monster Yasuke is, I end up using him to blitz through either kind of castle most of the time. That is harder with Naoe.

2) Stay On Your Horse, Avoid The Woods – In terms of navigation, this game does not want you to take shortcuts most of the time. I would almost always use your horse and the path tracker when going nearly anywhere. The woods are dense and the hills are steep off the main paths, and it will be more trouble than it’s worth. Follow the winding directions on horses and you will always get there faster.

3) Don’t Forget The Hidden Skill Tree Passive – This is easy to miss because it doesn’t look like a normal skill slot and you can’t put points into it. But at the bottom of every skill tree there will be a circle that shows you that you will get increased damage or health or things like that the more points you put into a tree. Jam points in there to get things like the 50% damage boost I now have on bow and naginata because I make sure to also do points on the left side row of perks, which will account for a lot of them.

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4) Don’t Forget Double or Triple Unlock Skill Perks – This is easy to miss. A number of upgrades will have a little dot or two above them. This means they can be upgraded multiple times, and for skills especially, these can be big damage boosts, sometimes 100% more damage if you remember to hit those nodes.

5) Always Do Your Contracts – Contracts refresh each season, are incredibly easy and usually close by. They give you a lot of upgrade materials for your base, your gear or just money, and if you’re short on any of that, never miss them.

6) Don’t Bother Smuggling With Scouts – That leads me to my next point, don’t bother using scouts to tag materials in enemy zones. They don’t give you that much, contracts are much more useful, and you should be saving your scouts mainly to find quest locations or occasionally, reset your wanted level.

7) Get Unblockable Counter Gear/Perks – While there are many styles of play in the game, I cannot live without giving the ability to parry unblockable attacks to both characters. For Yasuke, that’s a chestplate called Protector’s Armor found in Nijo Palace in Kyoto you can get very early. For Naoe, it’s not gear, but a Katana perk, though you need the final row of knowledge point upgrades to unlock that one, which takes a long time.

8) Ditch Old Gear Instead Of Always Upgrading – I made the mistake of trying to upgrade all my favorite gear endlessly, but you will quickly run out of materials for that. Do not be afraid to ditch old gear, even legendary gear, for rares or epics because higher levels will give you flat stat boosts that are hugely important. If you can’t live without a legendary, fine, focus on upgrading that one. But not all of them.

9) Get Legendary Blacksmith Mods – This requires a max Blacksmith upgrade at base, but it lets you take legendary mods from gear and put them in other gear’s slots. For instance, that unblockable parry perk from Yasuke’s armor can then be put into any other armor along with the original base perk.

10) Don’t Forget To Transmog – This is easy to miss, but making your guys look awesome is a great aspect of the game. You can delete gear and still have those styles unlocked. Most legendary gear will have its own unique look, but even lower tier gear can be some of the best in the game (the mask everyone always asks me about for one).

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.