Prosthetic Tool Upgrade Paths & Best Upgrades
Upgrading your Prosthetic Tools in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is crucial for expanding your combat options and overcoming challenging encounters. Each tool can be enhanced through a branching upgrade path, offering unique abilities and stat boosts. Understanding these paths and prioritizing key upgrades can significantly alter your playstyle and effectiveness.
Shinobi Firecracker Upgrades
The Shinobi Firecracker is an excellent tool for stunning enemies, creating openings for attacks or escapes. Its upgrades focus on duration and area of effect.
- Sparking Axe: Adds a powerful axe attack after the stun. This is a great offensive upgrade for dealing burst damage.
- Whistling Flame: Increases the stun duration and adds a small area of effect, making it more effective against groups.
Best Upgrade: For general use and boss fights, Whistling Flame offers the most utility due to its extended stun and AoE capabilities, allowing for more consistent follow-up attacks or breathing room.
Loaded Shuriken Upgrades
The Loaded Shuriken is useful for interrupting enemy actions and dealing chip damage from a distance. Its upgrades enhance its speed, damage, and utility.
- Gouging Top: Allows you to deal posture damage to enemies when they are blocking.
- Senpou Skipping Pro: Fires multiple shurikens in quick succession.
Best Upgrade: Senpou Skipping Pro is invaluable for quickly building posture damage, especially against agile enemies or those who tend to block frequently. It allows for rapid pressure application.
Loaded Spear Upgrades
The Loaded Spear is a versatile tool for pulling enemies closer, dealing significant damage, and breaking guards.
- Piercing Spear: Increases the range and damage of the spear thrust.
- Twin Dragon: Allows for a follow-up spinning attack after a successful pull.
Best Upgrade: Twin Dragon is highly recommended for its increased damage output and the ability to stagger enemies after a successful spear pull, opening them up for further attacks.
Sabimaru Upgrades
Sabimaru inflicts poison, which can be devastating against certain enemies and bosses. Its upgrades focus on increasing poison buildup and adding secondary effects.
- Poisoned Wind: Creates a cloud of poison after a successful hit.
- Sabimaru: Enhanced: Increases poison buildup and damage.
Best Upgrade: Sabimaru: Enhanced is the most straightforward and effective upgrade, maximizing the tool's primary function of inflicting poison. The added damage is significant.
Umbrella Upgrades
The Loaded Umbrella provides excellent defensive capabilities, allowing you to block most attacks. Its upgrades enhance its offensive potential.
- Phoenix's Lilac: Allows you to perform a counter-attack after blocking.
- Gale Scorch: Adds a fiery explosion to the counter-attack.
Best Upgrade: Phoenix's Lilac is a fantastic upgrade for turning defense into offense, allowing you to punish enemy aggression effectively. Gale Scorch further amplifies this by adding elemental damage.