Assassin’s Creed Shadowstakes the franchise to Japan for the first time, and thanks to this unique setting, AC Shadows boasts items that we’ve never seen before in the series' history. Whether you’re playing as Naoe or Yasuke, ensuring that you have powerful weapons and tools ready to beutilised in combatis crucial to your progression through AC Shadows' story.

While you can find new weapons to use in areas such as Castles and Palaces, it’s also important to upgrade your tools and ammo to be effective against enemies. Here’s how to upgrade both Naoe and Yasuke’s tools and what you’ll need to max them out.

Mastery Upgrade screen for Yasuke in Assassin’s Creed Shadows

How To Upgrade Tools

It’s easy to confuse tools with weapons in AC Shadows, but these are different items and serve different purposes.Weapons are items like katana and tantothat can picked up from chests or rewarded for completing quests and they have unlimited use by Naoe and Yasuke.Tools,on the other hand,are consumable items like kunai and bow and arrows.

Bothweapons and tools can be upgraded,but these are again done in different ways.Weapons are upgraded via the forgein the Hideout, whiletools are upgraded only via the Mastery tabin the pause menu. Not all the sections to Mastery are related to tools, though, with only theTools section for Naoeand theTeppo and Bow sections for Yasukerelevant to this.

Teppo upgrade screen for Yasuke in the Mastery tab in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

Weapon stats and abilities can also be upgraded via the Mastery tab.

you may upgrade tools by spending Mastery Points in the same way that you use Mastery points for other areas like Assassin and Kusarigama. Mastery Points are accrued by levelling up, completing story missions, and killing high-level enemies such as Samurai Daisho in Castles.

The Mastery upgrade screen for Tools for Naoe in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

Best Tools Upgrades

How you play AC Shadows will really determine which are the best upgrades to tools. In general, though, if you play as Naoe regularly,focusing on her tools like KunaiandSmoke Bombs is usually best. This is partly becauseYasuke doesn’t need toolsto be effective, and if you’re going to upgrade his abilities, you’re best off spending Mastery Points on his Long Katana, as this is the most effective weapon in his arsenal.

Naoe’sKunai are excellent for killing enemies from a distancewithout being detected, whileShuriken are perfect for stunning an enemybefore going to assassinate them.Smoke bombs are ideal for escaping combatsituations when you get overwhelmed and if you’re running out of tools regularly,increasing the size of your toolbagis usually a good idea.

You’ll level up quickly at first in AC Shadows, but don’t mistake that for a free hit when it comes to Mastery Points being spent. They will run out and be harder to get as you advance through the game, so be careful when you spend them andplan out your roadmap for levelling these upas Naoe and Yasuke.

How To Get The ‘In Case Of Trouble’ Trophy/Achievement

There is also a silver trophy that’s associated with upgrading your tools. The description of this trophy makes it sound simple, but actually getting to the point of unlocking it takes a long time. To achieveIn Case of Trouble,you’ll need tofully upgrade Naoe’s Tools Mastery section and the Teppo and Bow sections for Yasuke.YourKnowledge Levelwill need to be at the maximumlevel of sixto even have this available to you.

You can level up your Knowledge Level by collecting Knowledge Points which can be found by completing tasks found at the orange markers on the map.

Assuming you’re at Knowledge Rank 6, you’ll need to spend a total of70 Mastery Points on Tools, 86 for Bow,and78 on Teppo. That’s a total of 234 Mastery Points, so if you don’t have a lot saved up, this will be a serious grind.

Additionally, some of the skills can only be unlocked by destroying organisations found on the Objectives board and completing specific side quests, some of which overlap between the different skills sets.Tools requireyou to complete two of the following three tasks —the Tournament side quest, destroy the Pirate Alliance,anddestroy the Kurai Eikyou.

Tepporequires you todefeat both the Pirate Alliance and the Templars.Lastly,Bowrequires you todefeat both the Kurai Eikyou and Yokaiorganisations. Once you have completed all of these tasks and unlocked all of the tools and ammo mastery skills

To unlock the Platinum trophy, you’ll also need to spend Mastery Points on areas such as Naoe’s Shinobi skills for Art of Ninjutsu. So, you will need to spend points elsewhere to get 100 percent.