9 best skills to unlock in Creatures of Ava (2024)

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Vic’s skill tree is home to a generous selection of useful abilities and enhancements that can make saving the planet of Ava a whole lot easier. From Nafitar staff boosts to crafting bonuses, by way of smaller quality of life boons like slo-mo when snapping pictures, there’s a lot to choose from.

We’ll walk you through the ones we’ve found the most useful so far with a breakdown of the best skills that are worth sinking precious points into. If you’re having trouble amassing skill points, check out the locations of the Wind Chimes and Censers in the Tamura Grasslands, all of which contribute towards unlocking more points.

Chain Unchained and Spell Chain

The Chain Unchained skill allows Vic to chain an unlimited number of entities together when using the Nafitar Beam. The benefits are obvious, especially when trying to disinfect a several aggressive creatures at the same time. You’ll drain all the creatures simultaneously, reducing the time it takes to cure the creatures. Spell Chain boosts this further by making any spells Vic casts affect all creatures in the chain. Say you use Ushun, all the creatures will levitate at the same time, useful if they get a bit too close for comfort.

Item Detector

Ava is chock full of secrets, including a hefty selection of collectibles, including backpack pockets, health kits, stamina kits, and even lore-expanding tablets. With Item Detector unlocked, Vic’s camera will automatically vibrate when a rare object is nearby, giving you a major hint that it’s worth exploring nearby. Alongside, the skill also detects and marks nearby items (even through walls) when you’re using the camera.

Overcharge II

In the early stages of Creatures of Ava, you’ll be prompted to unlock Overcharge I, drastically increasing the Nafitar staff’s absorption power, which translates to cleansing creatures much faster. While crucial to Vic’s toolkit, Overcharge is hampered by a greedy mana cost. To counter this, invest points into Overcharge II, which speeds up absorption by a whopping +100%. Doing so will make creatures with hefty health bars much easier to deal with so you can worry less about sapping mana.

Ushun II

If you’ve unlocked the Chain Unchained and Spell Chain skills, you’re already pretty well set up to deal with large groups. Chuck in Ushun II, an upgrade to the Ushun skill that adds +0.75 seconds to the levitation effect, and you’ll stun the entire chained group for over two seconds, giving you ample time to unleash Overcharge and tear through health bars. It makes saving creatures for rescue missions a whole lot easier, especially when you come across more aggressive creatures later into the game.

Roll

A simple, but useful evasive skill, the Roll ability lets you double tap the dodge key (Alt on PC) to execute a dodge roll to avoid incoming attacks from infected creatures. It’s a potent way to get out of harm’s way when things get hectic or to breeze past a large group when you’re out exploring. The only downside is that rolling breaks the beam connection ring to any animals you’re trying to save.

Beam I and Beam II

The Nafitar staff’s Beam ability does most of the heavy lifting when you’re out saving creatures. Both the Beam I and Beam II skills improve the infection absorption rate by 50% each, giving you double the absorption power when both are unlocked. The result is that you’ll cleanse creatures faster and spend less time jumping and dodging around avoiding attacks.

Crafting Expert

There’s no avoiding the fact that Vic is going to take some hits as she goes about saving Ava. To keep her in top shape, you’ll chug countless health brews and boosters, which involves constantly seeking out plants and ingredients to craft consumables. To help make this more efficient, the Crafting Expert skill introduces a mini-game to crafting that grants up to +2 extra crafted items when executed perfectly.