Yaya Ally Guide: The Dojo

Learn how to recruit Yaya in Assassin's Creed Shadows by making the right choices, and discover how to rank her up in The Dojo to unlock powerful abilities and armor.

Alright, let's talk about Yaya, your first potential ally in Assassin's Creed Shadows. She's a pretty important character early on, and getting her on your side involves a few key decisions during specific missions. We'll walk through exactly what you need to do to recruit her and then how to make her even stronger using The Dojo.

Unlocking Yaya

You'll first cross paths with Yaya during the 'The Wounded' assassination mission, where Naoe is tracking down the Onryo. She plays a significant role in taking down Wada Koretake. After that whole ordeal, you'll face a crucial scene with a few choices that determine if Yaya joins you. To get her to join, you absolutely need to nail these three choices:

1. During the 'Heads Will Roll' mission (which is part of the Wada Koretake assassination), when you're asked about dealing with the captives, you MUST pick the option: “Killing them isn’t justice.”
2. When you start the 'Stray Dogs' quest, you'll encounter a Shrine Raider. Your response here needs to be: “Forgive him.”
3. Stick with it! At the end of that same 'Stray Dogs' quest, there's one last choice. You need to select: “You need to forgive each other.” Immediately after that, you'll get another choice, and this time you need to ask her to join you. Do all that, and she's yours!

Yaya’s Ranks and The Dojo

So, you've got Yaya! Now, to really make her shine, you'll want to use The Dojo in your Hideout. This is how you rank up all your allies, and it can be done twice for each of them. Keep in mind, ranking up costs 'Mon' (that's the in-game currency) and you'll need to have a certain Dojo level first. Here’s the breakdown for Yaya:

You'll need to build and upgrade The Dojo to manage your allies effectively. It's worth the investment to get Yaya and others up to speed.

Yaya’s Abilities Explained

Every ally in Assassin's Creed Shadows comes with their own Active and Passive abilities. When you use an ally's Active Ability, it goes on a cooldown, but these are separate from Naoe and Yasuke's own abilities. Yaya's abilities are all about controlling the battlefield with pushbacks and knockdowns.

Yaya Analysis: Is She Worth It?

Absolutely! Since Yaya is the first ally you can recruit, there's really no downside to having her with you. Make sure she's equipped and focus on upgrading The Dojo to at least level 3 so you can get the most out of her. When you start making decisions about who to bring along for certain tasks, consider who benefits most. Yasuke, being a heavy hitter himself, might not gain as much from Yaya's pushback style compared to Naoe.

Naoe, on the other hand, will always find Yaya useful. Naoe is more about stealth and agility and doesn't have access to pushback moves like Yasuke does. So, Yaya can be a fantastic addition to Naoe's support setup. Seriously, try to upgrade her at least once as soon as you get her. It's really when she hits the 'Initiate' rank and unlocks Oshitaoshi that she starts to truly shine, and her 'Inner Strength' passive ability will be a lifesaver when you find yourself swarmed by enemies.