Crimson Desert: Best Early Skills and How to Unlock Them

Crimson Desert has a unique way of levelling up and acquiring skills when it comes to an RPG. Whereas you would normally farm enemies, do quests, get XP, and earn skills, Crimson Desert instead puts the emphasis on completing specific puzzles and enemies to earn Abyss Artifacts. For example, the very first puzzle in the game, Abyss Without Balance, gives you one as a reward.

While it's important to note that there is no consensus on what's 'best' yet, we do think we've found a good path. Early in the game, you will fight a lot of bosses, and those bosses are actually pretty hard so having enough Health will be essential to give yourself some wiggle room. In this article, we'll look at each of the three Skill Trees.

Note: You can always put points in the three "end stones" to give direct stats in that specific area. You will then find skills that match either Health, Spirit, or Stamina in the respective tree.

The Foundation: Health and Stamina Balance

Early bosses in Crimson Desert are relentless. To survive, you need a solid foundation. We recommend a 1:1 ratio for your initial points:

• Health: Aim for 10/18 points early on. This provides the "wiggle room" needed to survive heavy hits while you learn boss patterns
• Stamina: This governs your ability to Dodge, Block, and Sprint. Following an alternating pattern, Health, Skill, Stamina, Skill, etc, will ensure you don't run out of breath mid-combo

Health

Health is exactly what it says on the tin. Add skills points here to get more health so that you can take more hits in a fight. An early tactic we went for was placing each alternating "skill point" into Health until we had around 10/18 points in there. You can choose to hold off at first, and maybe get a feel for your first boss fight before deciding.

Notable Health Skills

Flight: Found in the red tree, the second level of Flight is great early, as it gives you access to more control of the Flight mechanic early. While the Stamina cost does increase, it does give you amazing early game gap-clearing potential.

Aerial Roll: You can also enhance this further by picking up the Aerial Roll skills after it for even more of a boost while flying.

Spirit

Spirit is a good tree, mostly focusing on Skills and mechanics. Here you will find things like Counter, Dodge, and many Observed skills. Directly putting points here will give you more "Skill power," which is useful, but not as important early. This is one you can avoid directly early; however, some of the skills in the tree are very good.

Notable Spirit Skills

• Keen Senses (Level 3): This is a real "must have" skill to pick up early, and one you want to get to level 3 asap. As you can see above, Keen Senses is where you will find Dodge, Parry, and Counter. Three incredible skills for combat. You will have Counter already, but the other two are a must have.
• Evasive Roll: Evasive Roll will unlock after Keen Sense; however, during Chapter 2, you can do the Hornsplitter boss fight and Observe the skill to unlock it. Evasive Roll is like Dodge version 2, letting you avoid damage that you have already started to take.
• Focused Insight: Focus is an early skill that lets you regenerate Spirit. However, Focused Insight, which is one of the skills inside it allows you to slow down time and Parry any incoming melee attack. This is great for some of the early boss fights and works well in hectic fights.

• Nature's Echo: Nature's Echo is an incredible damage skill that essentially means your attacks hit twice. Putting a point in Echoing Stab, Forward Slice, and Spinning Slash will mean each of those attacks is replicated again. This is a very good skill to pick up early and then max out to 3/3
• Focused Force Palm: This is an essential skill for some puzzles in the game, and one we unlocked very early. As such, it can be learnt for free in Chapter 4
  • In Chapter 4, go to Scholastone, follow the road until you see a blocked passageway, which will have lots of distorted "pixels" on the rocks
  • Here you will find a spirit guide that teaches you the ability via the "watch and learn" mechanic

Stamina

Stamina influences how much you can Dodge, Block, Parry, and Spring, in both combat and the open world. A good strategy we used was to alternate Stamina and Health between skills. Similar to Health, we did this to around level 10 at the start. Overall, the Stamina tree is all about combat abilities.

If you prefer the classic Sword and Shield approach, the Stamina tree is your home.

Notable Stamina Skills

• Armed Combat: This is a "Keystone" skill. It unlocks Evasive Slash, Rush, and Charge, which are the bread and butter of your offensive kit.
• Stab (with Rend Armor): Putting points here increases raw damage, but the real prize is the Rend Armor sub-skill. This allows you to ignore the defence of elite bosses, leveling the playing field.

As the world of Pywel expands and more Abyss Artifacts are discovered, we will continue to update this guide with advanced synergies and late-game skill combinations.