Best Skills to Unlock - Black Myth: Wukong Guide - IGN (2024)

There are a huge number of skills to unlock in Black Myth Wukong, and it can be daunting to know where to begin. Though the game helps by limiting the skills trees you can first interact with, there is still a wide variety of skills to choose from. With so many choices, choosing which skills to unlock can be daunting, but our guide is designed to help you decide which skills to unlock.

Jump to:

• How to Unlock Skills in Black Myth: Wukong
• How to Understand the Early Game Skills Trees
• How to Understand the Mid-to-Late Game Skills Trees
• Best Foundation Skills to Unlock
• Best Staff Stances Skills to Unlock
• Best Mysticism Skills to Unlock
• Best Alteration Skills to Unlock
• Best Strand Skills to Unlock
• Best Transformations Skills to Unlock

How to Unlock Skills in Black Myth: Wukong

You can unlock skills under the Self-Advance tab of the main menu. To be able to awaken skills, you'll need Sparks, which are earned through leveling up.

Skills are divided into two categories: Abilities and Spells. Abilities cover your Foundation skills and Staff Stances, while Spells cover Mysticism, Alterations, Strand, and Transformations.

How to Understand the Early Game Skills Trees

At the beginning of the game, you’ll see that there are locked branches of the skill tree and you’ll only have access to Foundation, Staff Stances, and Mysticism.

The Foundation section of the skills is divided into Stamina, Martial Arts, and Survival. In these skill trees, you’ll be able to awaken abilities that will reduce your stamina consumption, increase your health, and upgrade your standard attacks.

Staff Stances comprise Smash Stance, Pillar Stance, and Thrust Stance, though the latter can’t be unlocked until you reach level 20. Smash Stance is your starting stance, and Pillar Stance can be unlocked by awakening the first node in the corresponding Skill Tree.

On the left-hand side of the Staff Stances tab, you’ll also find uncategorized skills. The ones closest to the Smash Stance set will increase your health recovery, the damage you deal, and the stamina you recover.

Meanwhile, the ones on the far left will automatically unlock as you sink more points into Staff Stances. These will give additional Focus Points, to a total of four, and are also required for you to be able to unlock skill points from the skill tree further down.

Finally, Mysticism is where you can control the first spell you’ll learn - Immobilize. This will improve the duration of the Immobilize effect, and allow you to cause more damage when attacking using this.

How to Understand the Mid-to-Late Game Skills Trees

When you hit level 20 and beyond, you'll start to unlock even more of the Skills Trees. By the end of Chapter 2/start of Chapter 3, you can have all of the Skills tabs unlocked (as long as you've explored thoroughly and taken down optional bosses). This will grant you the Alteration, Strand, and Transformations skills.

Alteration applies to spells like Cloud Step and Rock Solid and will improve the health of your decoy, movement speed, and unlock the chance to deflect attacks with a parry.

The Transformations menu applies to any Transformation spells you collect and you'll find skills to improve might recovery, maximum health when transformed, increased defense, and more.

Finally, in the Strand menu, you'll find the spell A Pluck of Many, where you can send out multiple Duplicates to help you. The skills you can unlock here will increase the health of your Duplicates, along with their attack power, and more.

Best Foundation Skills to Unlock

Foundation Skills are full of useful abilities and we'd recommend focusing your Sparks in this category, especially at the start of the game.

Robust Constitution and Rampant Vigor will give you boosts to your health and stamina respectively, helping you in those early fights. Similan Agility works well with Rampant Vigor, reducing the stamina cost of dodging, while you're already benefiting from an increase to max stamina. Being able to dodge consistently and worry less about stamina will get you out of some sticky situations.

Along with the suggested skills, we'd suggest unlocking skills that will allow you to complete combos without interruption, with more attack power on finishers, and those that build focus quickly.

Best Staff Stances Skills to Unlock

The skills you choose in this category will depend on your stance preference but we'd argue that Smash Stance is the best. With the suggested skills, you'll unlock a new Heavy Attack at the end of a Light Attack combo. Adding Invigoration to the chain of Resolute Counterflow and Skyfall Strike will ensure you're building plenty of focus while completing those combos.

The aim for the Staff Stances category is to get 20 points in there at least to eventually unlock Focus Attack IV and have 4 Focus Points you can build up at a time.

Best Mysticism Skills to Unlock

You'll unlock Mysticism early on and be able to use Immobilize to stop enemies in their tracks. Skills like Stagnation, where you extend the duration of Immobilization the next time you use the spell are invaluable especially as they stack.

Team this with Evanescence and you can extend the Immobilization once again, but also increase the damage they take once they try to attack. The goal for this category should be to try and do as much damage as possible and have the spell last as long as you can.

Later on, you'll also earn Ring of Fire, which will help you recover quicker and can be used to protect against the cold. Skills like Raging Flames and Consolidation are worth unlocking here, to help you recover and build Focus simultaneously so you can jump back into the action as you exit the ring.

Best Alteration Skills to Unlock

Alteration consists of spells like Cloud Step and Rock Solid. For Cloud Step, we'd suggest focusing on skills such as Concealed Observation and Thunder Strike. These will increase the damage you can do when performing an Unveiling Strike, where you can take an enemy by surprise.

For Rock Solid, Rock Mastery, Ironclad, and Bold Venture are particularly useful. With this combination of skills, when you're successful at Deflecting, you can recover Mana quickly, and take less damage for a short amount of time. With the Mana recovery and the Rock Mastery reducing the cooldown of the spell, you can get more use of Rock Solid in fights.

Best Strand Skills to Unlock

You'll want to spend Sparks increasing the duration, health, and attack power of your Duplicates first and then try to make them as useful as possible.

To do this, we'd suggest getting Harmoy and Volition. This will allow them the freedom to perform spells and have an effect on enemies, and also grant you Focus while they attack.

Best Transformations Skills to Unlock

Transformations add some spice to combat and can be hugely beneficial, especially as they have completely different health and status bars to your character.

When you're transformed, you want the Transformation to last as long as possible and deal as much damage as you can. The combination of Moon Roam, Evergreen, and Ferocious Form will allow you to do just that.

If you want to spend additional Sparks in this category, Might Reserve will let you keep some Might when you transform back into primate form and Hidden Might increases your max Might level.