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All 8 New Kliff Skills in Crimson Desert Enhanced Edition and How to Unlock Them

Crimson Desert's Enhanced Edition adds eight new Kliff Skills, and this guide covers how to unlock each one, the required base skill levels, and what every upgrade actually does.

Crimson Desert’s Enhanced Edition adds eight new Kliff Skills, and this guide covers how to unlock each one, the required base skill levels, and what every upgrade actually does.

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The Enhanced Edition update adds 8 new skills for Kliff that open up after you finish Enlightenment in Chapter 9, and each one is an upgrade to a skill you already have — you learn it by leveling the base skill to a set level and spending Abyss Artifacts.

Key None of these are brand-new nodes bolted onto the tree — every one of the eight is an enhancement to a skill Kliff already owns, so leveling the right base skill is what makes the upgrade appear. Six of them sit in the Spirit tree, with one each in Health and Stamina. When you first load in after the update and open the Skills menu, a short animation highlights exactly which nodes are new, so you won’t have to hunt for them.

Every new Kliff skill at a glance

Skill Unlock requirement What it does
Water Stride Double Jump Lv 2 + 1 Abyss Artifact Sprint across water surfaces, draining stamina.
Enhance Flight Flight Lv 3 Dive straight down mid-flight for faster landings.
Flowing Force Palm Force Palm Lv 4 + 1 Abyss Artifact Boosts the first two hits and adds an extra attack.
Ascending Force Palm Force Palm Lv 5 Enhances Aerial Force Palm and launches Kliff higher.
Descending Force Palm Diving Force Palm Lv 2 Follow Aerial Force Palm into a Diving Force Palm.
Enraged Parry Keen Senses Lv 4 + 2 Abyss Artifacts Parry an incoming attack while doing other actions.
Finishing Rush Armed Combat Lv 6 Continue your light-attack combo onto a nearby enemy.
Serenity Focus Lv 4 Recover more Spirit while holding Focus.

Use the table to jump to whichever upgrade you’re chasing — the sections below cover how each one plays and the exact input that fires it.

QUICK WIN

Level up Force Palm first — three of the eight upgrades (Flowing, Ascending, and the combo route into Descending Force Palm) build off that single base skill, so pushing one node unlocks most of the new combat toolkit.

Water Stride: run across water

Water Stride requires Double Jump Level 2 plus 1 Abyss Artifact to learn. Once it’s active, Kliff can sprint straight across the surface of the water instead of dropping into a slow swim — just hold the sprint input (Hold X on PS5, Hold A on Xbox) as you cross.

It burns stamina the whole time it’s active, at roughly 10 stamina per second, so it’s for crossing gaps rather than long-distance travel. Even so, it’s easily one of the most useful movement upgrades in the update, since it turns rivers and lakes from obstacles into shortcuts.

Water Stride's requirements panel in the Skills menu
Water Stride’s requirements panel in the Skills menu | heyAppleDS/YouTube

Enhance Flight: dive straight down

Enhance Flight comes from leveling Flight to Level 3, and it unlocks as soon as that requirement is met. With it active, you can dive straight down while gliding — press R2 during Flight on PS5 (RT on Xbox) — rather than slowly bleeding off altitude.

The payoff is control: you can drop precisely onto a ledge or a lower area instead of drifting past it, which makes flight far smoother to use during exploration. The in-game panel labels it Enhance Flight, so that’s the name to look for even though it’s sometimes written as “Enhanced Flight.”

Enhance Flight's requirements panel
Enhance Flight’s requirements panel | heyAppleDS/YouTube

Flowing Force Palm: a stronger opener

Flowing Force Palm is the first of the Force Palm combo upgrades, and it unlocks at Force Palm Level 4 for 1 Abyss Artifact. It raises the damage of the first and second hits of Force Palm and tacks an extra attack onto the end of the sequence.

You’ll actually see the additional energy strike land when you use Force Palm in combat. It’s a simple upgrade, but the extra hit and front-loaded damage make the full string noticeably stronger.

Ascending Force Palm: launch into the air

Ascending Force Palm requires Force Palm Level 5. It improves the aerial version of Force Palm and sends Kliff much higher into the air when you use it, giving you the room to keep an aerial string going or transition into another movement skill.

The extra height is what makes it matter — it pairs especially well with the other new Force Palm upgrades, letting you build a smooth combo that starts on the ground and carries up into the air.

Descending Force Palm: slam back down

Descending Force Palm unlocks once you push Diving Force Palm to Level 2. It lets you follow an Aerial Force Palm straight into a Diving Force Palm — press R3 during Aerial Force Palm on PS5 (RS on Xbox, or hold the middle mouse button on PC) — sending Kliff crashing back toward the ground.

That turns an aerial hit into a heavy downward strike without breaking the combo. It works best right after Ascending Force Palm: launch up, then immediately drive the attack back down for a full up-and-down chain.

Descending Force Palm's requirements panel
Descending Force Palm’s requirements panel | heyAppleDS/YouTube

Enraged Parry: block mid-attack

Enraged Parry requires Keen Senses Level 4. Once that’s met, it costs two of the skill currency to learn — the requirements panel lists it as Abyss Link x2 while the tutorial describes it as 2 Abyss Artifacts, so budget two either way.

What it does is let you parry an incoming attack while you’re in the middle of other actions — press L1 on PS5 (LB on Xbox, Ctrl on PC) without having to stop your current attack first. That makes it far easier to stay aggressive and still react to what an enemy throws back, which is exactly what you want against fast, pushy bosses.

Enraged Parry's requirements panel
Enraged Parry’s requirements panel | heyAppleDS/YouTube

Finishing Rush: chase the next target

Finishing Rush unlocks at Armed Combat Level 6. It lets Kliff continue his light-attack sequence and rush straight to another nearby enemy instead of stopping once he’s done with the first — press the light attack again (LMB on PC) after a string to close the gap.

It’s built for crowds. Rather than resetting between targets, you keep the pressure on and flow from one enemy into the next, which makes fighting groups feel much faster and more fluid.

Finishing Rush's requirements panel
Finishing Rush’s requirements panel | heyAppleDS/YouTube

Serenity: better spirit recovery

Serenity requires Focus Level 4. It increases the amount of Spirit you recover while maintaining Focus — press L3 + R3 on PS5 (LS + RS on Xbox) to hold Focus.

It’s the least flashy of the eight, but the extra Spirit regen pays off in longer fights where resource management starts to matter. If you lean on Focus often, it quietly makes the rest of your kit easier to sustain.

Serenity's requirements panel
Serenity’s requirements panel | heyAppleDS/YouTube

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Frequently Asked Questions

Does installing the update reset your skills and refund the Abyss Artifacts you already spent?

Yes. Installing the Enhanced Edition update runs a one-time skill reset, and everything you’d already spent — including Abyss Artifacts — is refunded, so you can rebuild your whole tree from scratch and slot in the new upgrades. Going forward, resets are handled per character rather than wiping every character at once.

Which of the 8 new skills is worth unlocking first?

If you spend most of your time exploring, Water Stride is the standout — it only asks for Double Jump Level 2 and a single Abyss Artifact, making it one of the cheapest meaningful unlocks, and it changes how you cross the map immediately. For combat-focused players, funnel your levels into Force Palm instead, since a single base skill feeds a whole chain of the new upgrades.

Do Klay, Damiana, and Oongka get these skills too, or only Kliff?

These eight are Kliff’s alone. The other playable characters have their own skill tabs in the menu and spend Abyss Link on upgrades tied to their own kits, so none of these specific enhancements carry over to them.


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