Assassin's Creed Valhalla Skill Trees Explained

Assassin's Creed—over the last few games—has had a strong RPG presence and tons of upgrade to choose from. Assassin's Creed Valhalla is no different. That being said, this is perhaps the biggest departure this base system has ever made. Instead of the 44 skills over three class types that Odyssey offered, Assassin's Creed Valhalla employs hundreds of skills over branching class types that tie together. If you're looking for a rundown, you've come to the right place.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla's Skill Trees Explained

Upon booting Assassin's Creed Valhalla up and scrolling over to your skill tree, you'll notice you have three branching paths: Above is the Way of the Bear, to the right is the Way of the Wolf, and to the left is the Way of the Raven. The entirety of the skill tree is broken up into smaller constellations that have about ten unlocks.

After making your way through one constellation, the skill tree opens up a little bit more to show you the next set of unlocks. It is a huge skill tree taking hundreds of skill points to unlock it all. Every skill point you sink into it upgrades your power by one, and this power indicates how strong you are for certain areas.

As upgrades increase your health, damage, and abilities drastically, you should definitely stick to the area Valhalla recommends. Let's get into the skill trees.

Assassin's Creed Valhalla - Abilities

Abilities come from two main places in Assassin's Creed Valhalla: Each constellation in the skill trees give you one ability to add to your arsenal, and wealth can give you ability books. Most of the abilities in the skill tree are unlocked regardless of class type and can be used in most scenarios.

On the other hand, the skills earned from wealth locations tend to be skills like those in Odyssey; You can use them in combat, but only if you have enough adrenaline. These can do great things like call a wolf or deal an extra-strong jumping attack, but aren't quite as versatile as the ones that come from the constellations. Lets go over classes and their abilities. 

Assassin's Creed Valhalla - Way of the Bear

Way of the Bear is based on power and melee damage. As the name suggests, this turns you into a brutal marauder with extra damage and higher resistance. It doesn't focus so much on ranged and stealth but still grants little bonuses to those too. Even focusing entirely on this won't totally lock you off from being good at the other playstyles.

The very first ability you learn in this path, "Stomp," is very effective in battle. After you break someone's stun with heavy attacks, this gives you the option for an extra-high-damage attack. If you hit the enemy normally whilst they are stunned, you lose this opportunity. The trick is you can swing a heavy axe at a downed foe and immediately click the Stomp ability to hit with both for huge damage.

Then moving up two, if you totally want to throw the stealth out of the window, "Warrior Takedown" is a replacement you can choose to assassinate where you heavy attack instead. It alerts the surrounding area but fills your adrenaline up by one, making you ready to fire a special move immediately. These two are the best skills for brutal combat and heavy attacks. 

Assassin's Creed Valhalla - Way of the Wolf

The Way of the Wolf favors your bow—a weapon that is already very good. A single shot to the head will kill most standard enemies, and you can take advantage of weak spots to stun enemies. Find out more about that in our beginner's guide. Although focused on ranged, this has a lot of crossover with the other playstyles, featuring some neat bonuses to stealth.

A really nice ranged ability is "Battleground Bolt." This grabs a random weapon from the ground and hurls it at a nearby enemy. If you run out of arrows or just want to do something cool, this one is highly recommended. 

Assassin's Creed Valhalla - Way of the Raven

The Way of the Raven is your main stealth tree in Assassin's Creed Valhalla. If you want to take down a camp without being spot, this is where you will get most of your abilities. It offers more evasive stats, health, and assassination damage.

A standout skill from this tree is the "Chain Assassination" skill that allows you to assassinate multiple targets at once. Even if you don't enjoy stealth a lot, this is a great way of clearing multiple people at the start of a fight.

Whilst each tree has its own benefits, it's clear that Assassin's Creed Valhalla was designed to let you test them all out a bit. Every single skill point that is not spent on abilities goes towards stats, so you are often better off just exploring, discovering the whole tree, and then making your decision on which abilities to use. You can also reset all skills at any moment, making customization and experimentation very easy. Branch out, try everything, and have fun!

And with that, you should be well equipped to handle the harsh weather and even harsher enemies in Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. With information from travel to resources to abilities, this should have you covered. Check out all of our other guides for more information on the game and our review.