Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 changes how progression works, adding new Gadgets, Suit Tech and Abilities to unlock as you level up. To purchase, you’ll need to earn skill points or collect materials by completing the many, many activities you’ll unlock as you progress through the main story. The sequel is also much, much more difficult than the first — with some truly crushingly tough boss fights. If you want to make the game much easier on yourself, you’ll want to unlock these skills first. It’s going to take a while to unlock them, but these are the skills worth aiming for.
More Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 guides:
All Costumes | Spider-Bots Locations | Photo Ops | Marko’s Memories | Prowler Stashes | EMF Experiments | Unidentified Targets | You Know What To Do Trophy
Best Skills You Need To Unlock
Instead of unlocking new gadgets as the game progresses, you’ll be able to purchase upgrades for your gear ASAP in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. There are multiple different types of upgrades you can get, and these are the ones we think you need to buy first.
- Suit Tech: Focus
- Upgrading Focus is absolutely essential in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and should be one of the first upgrades you unlock. Purchase upgrades until you get x3 Focus Meter charges.
- With Focus Meter upgraded, you’ll be able to use more Finishers, use Finishers on brute enemies, and heal more often. Healing is critical here. When you start fighting bosses in the second half of the game, using Focus for Healing is basically required to survive unless you’re a perfect Spider-Fighter.
- Gadgets: Web Shooters
- One of the best weapons for defeating enemies quickly, Web Shooter upgrades are essential. Once you unlock the ability to web up heavy enemies, you’ll be able to defeat bad guys faster. You can instantly defeat enemies by webbing them up and throwing them into walls, or punching them to the sky, then knocking them down. While they’re down, web them up for a quick defeat.
- Gadgets: Sonic Burst
- The enhanced version of your third gadget slot, the Sonic Burst only becomes available later in the game. But this enhanced version of the burst gadget is insanely useful. Using it will stun all enemies in an area and make them weaker. Upgrade in the end-game to make nests so much easier to handle.
- Skills (Both): Wall Thrash
- Another skill for both Spider-Men. This is one of the latest skills on the Bounce Up tree. At the bottom, you’ll find Wall Thrash — one of the best skills in the game. Knocking an enemy into a wall, you’ll be able to perfect a powerful combo attack the rapidly deals high damage, either defeating regular enemies or totally wrecking tough ones. Incredibly useful when the game starts getting tough.
- Skills (Both): Combo Resupply
- This entire row of Spider-Men skills is essential for combat. Combo Resupply causes Spider-Man to (potentially) get a free gadget use after 4-hit combo. This skill tree leads to Perfect Dodge Recharge, KO Recharge and Gadget Resupply. Gadget Resupply is incredibly useful.
- Skills (Miles): Mega Venom Blast: Self Care
- This late ability on the right side of Miles skills menu is ridiculously good. This refills your Focus meter completely after unleashing a Mega Venom Blast.
- Skills (Peter): Symbiote Yank: Empowered
- Down the middle of Peter’s skills, you’ll find the Symbiote Yank: Empowered skill. This removes the limit on how many enemies you can grab and slam with Symbiote Yank. Essentially, that means you can grab an infinite number of enemies — all of them in an area. Very good for dealing with large hordes, which you will be dealing with later in the game.
- Skills (Both): Bounce Up & Web Throw
- Essential (and simple) skills for knocking regular enemies around. These skills, when used well, allow you to instantly knock out enemies by webbing them up, knocking them into the air, then throwing them back down — or by throwing a webbed-up enemy into a wall.
- Gadgets: Web Grabber
- One of the most fun gadgets, this tool pulls groups of enemies together. Once they’re all clumped up, use one of Spider-Man’s abilities to knock them all out instantly. His Spider-Rush attack is especially strong against clumped enemies.
- Later, the Web Grabber will also pull objects from all over the environment, bombarding enemies. Very effective against tough brutes.
- Suit Tech: Health + Damage
- These are also essential, but only as much as you feel you’re falling behind. Buy these up whenever you think you’re low on Health. I recommend buying Health upgrades first, then Damage as you can afford more. But don’t feel the need to fully upgrade.
- These skills are incredibly important for completing the Mysterium Challenges faster. When you want to get gold, increase Damage to maximum.
- Suit Tech: Traversal
- The only Suit Tech upgrade we think is totally optional. Traversal is fun and it is exciting speeding through New York City, but these skills won’t help you beat boss fights or complete collectibles. These are purely for fun and can be saved until later in the game.
