Black Myth Wukong isn’t as unforgiving as the FromSoftware games it is compared to, especially at the start.
Still, as players progress through the initial chapters, especially when facing optional bosses, they’ll find out that the main similarity between these games is the difficulty.
READ: How To Upgrade Armor In Black Myth Wukong
You have a lot more control over your own powers here, though, and you can use that to make the game much easier.
All skill points can be refunded at will, with no penalties, so you can also switch and adapt on the fly. With that in mind, here are what we consider the best early game builds for Black Myth Wukong, and when you should change between them.
This is your safe bread and butter build. You should be mixing your points between the Thrust Stance and the Stamina tree inside the Foundation category. This stance is safe and very agile, allowing you to weave dodges into your combos, and to make the most out of the Stamina you have.
We recommend indexing fully into Thrust Stance until you reach Whirling Thrusts, which will be your main offensive tool. After reaching this point, dump all your Sparks into the Stamina tree until unlocking Composure, which is the second key to your offense.
From here on out, it’s personal preference. If you’re confident in your ability to successfully use Tactical Retreat, make your way to Ebb and Flow. If dodging is more your style, Deadly Dance will be better here, but you’ll need to be much more aggressive to consistently reach four focus points during fights.
After maxing whichever final side of the Thrust Stance you choose, fully max your Stamina tree, as both final upgrades are excellent.
The plan with this build is simple, you want to stay on top of your opponents spamming light attacks, making use of your high stamina, which will be buffed by the stance. When you’re about to get hit, aim for a perfect dodge when out of focus points, — or when you’re not sure about the enemy timings yet — or for a Tactical Retreat into Forceful Thrust when you have at least one focus point.
If you subscribe to the “high-risk, high-reward” mindset, this will be your build of choice in Black Myth Wukong. It is much more dangerous than build one, but it deals a lot more damage. Fights will be over much quicker, and you can overwhelm most enemies, even some bosses, at the early stages of the game.
You should first invest your Sparks into the Smash Stance tree, focusing on the right side of it. The goal here is to rush towards Vantage Point, and unlock Resolute Strike and Skyfall Strike on the way there. You’ll need to put some points into the left side of the tree to unlock the Focus Point caps, and we’d also recommend investing some into Exhilaration and Versatility.
After unlocking Vantage Point, don’t get Peace From Peril, focus instead on making your way through the left side of the Martial Arts tree until you get Punishing Downpour. From here on out, you’ll want to unlock Composure in your Stamina tree, before maxing out the Martial Arts and Smash Stance trees. This will max out your damage potential through the Light Attack Finisher, which will be your main damaging tool.
This build must be played with utmost aggression. You want to be fishing for Light Attack Finishers at all times, building as much focus as possible. If the enemy is about to hit you, throw a Heavy Attack out to make use of your Resolute Strike. If you stagger them with it and you have another focus point, go for Skyfall Strike.
If you stagger them but you’re out of focus points, start your Light Attack combo again, as it will already be in its third move. When Resolute Strike fails to stagger your opponent, opt for a dodge unless you’re confident they’ll go for a ground attack, which you’ll be able to dodge with Skyfall Strike.
The first spell you unlock in the game is Immobilize, which stops your enemies mid-animation. This can be used both offensively and defensively. It is extremely powerful, and has very few downsides.
There are certain boss attacks and phase changes that will break through Immobilize, but 95% of the time, it will stop everyone in their tracks.
As the only spell build in this article, progression will look a bit different here. Your priority is unlocking Evanescence, which is your strongest tool. Afterwards, you’ll want to max out the left side of Martial Arts, followed by getting Composure in the Stamina tree.
By this point, you’ll be level 18. You’ll need to reach level 30 before being able to unlock Spiritual Awakening and Unbroken Chain, our two next major upgrades, so split your Sparks between Robust Constitution (Health) and Rampant Vigor (Stamina) until you reach that point.
With both those skills unlocked, all you have left to do is to max Immobilize and, crucially, to craft the Bronze set, which massively boosts this build. The armor’s set bonus, Evil Crasher, allows you to deal more damage when crashing the spell and massively reduces the spell’s cooldown when you manage to crash it.
Our focus on making Light Attack combos stronger and having Immobilize maxed out will mean that, if used well, you’ll always be able to crash opponents during the spell, maximizing the effectiveness of the Bronze armor.
Ideally, you’ll be fishing for a perfect usage Evanescence, which essentially means you’re parrying hits with Immobilize. This is hard to do, but you should always try.
If you’re too late, Immobilize will be wasted, but if you’re too early, it will still work, just not as effectively. If your timing is perfect, though, you’ll destroy bosses in ways that aren’t possible with any other builds.
Immobilize them and immediately fish for a Light Attack Finisher, followed by a charged Heavy Attack if you haven’t crashed them yet.
We aimed to present three extremely powerful builds with vastly different playstyles, allowing most players to find something they like here. All three of these are viable choices for your early game, and will make your Journey To The West considerably easier.
We left Pillar Stance out as it is the weakest against bosses until you unlock powerful weapons, which won’t happen until Chapter 3, halfway through the game. Boss fights are the brunt of the game’s difficulty, so it makes no sense to index into Pillar Stance at the start of your journey.
There are no perfect armors or weapons for our two first builds, hence why we didn’t mention any. In the first few chapters of Black Myth Wukong, you should really be aiming for the armors and weapons with the biggest numbers, as you won’t be unlocking build-specific items until Chapter 3, with the exception of the Bronze set.
If you’re not sure on which build you’ll like more, try all three! Sparks can be refunded for free as many times as you want, so you can try a few boss fights with each build, or switch between them depending on the bosses.
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