The Last of Us Part 2 Skills Guide: Every Branch and Cost

Ellie's upgrade menu opens with one branch and a wall of grey boxes, and most players read that as "come back later." It isn't. Those grey boxes are branches you unlock by picking up a book off a counter, and if you walk past the right counter in Downtown you spend the next several hours of Seattle without the ability to craft a silencer or a smoke bomb.

Part II hides an entire progression system behind four collectibles per character. Nothing warns you. There's no quest marker, no "you missed something" prompt, and the manuals sit in optional side rooms.

So here is the whole thing with real numbers: ten branches, fifty upgrades, exact supplement costs, all eight manual locations, and the specific handful worth buying early. Everything below is the game, not the HBO show, and it covers The Last of Us Part II and Part II Remastered — the trees are identical between them.

Supplements buy skills, parts buy guns

Two currencies, and people mix them up constantly.

Supplements are the pill bottles and potted plants. They buy player upgrades in the backpack menu — health, listen mode, crafting recipes, aim. You spend them anywhere, any time, no workbench needed.

Parts are the gears and bolts. They buy weapon upgrades — stability, capacity, damage — and they only spend at a workbench. If you want that side of it, our weapons guide is the one to read.

The two pools never talk to each other. Hoarding parts does not get you Endure, and 400 supplements will not put a scope on your bolt-action.

The other thing nobody tells you up front: Ellie and Abby have completely separate supplement wallets. When the game hands you Abby, everything Ellie banked stays with Ellie. You start over at zero, with one branch open and four locked, in a chapter that opens with a stadium full of people who want you dead.

The real number is 1,900 supplements

Fifty upgrades, five per branch, ten branches — five for Ellie, five for Abby.

Add every branch total and each character's complete tree costs exactly 950 supplements. Both of them. Not roughly the same, the same: Ellie's 220 + 170 + 210 + 180 + 170 and Abby's 190 + 200 + 210 + 180 + 170 both land on 950. Naughty Dog balanced these to the pill.

That makes 1,900 for the full set, and one playthrough does not contain 1,900 supplements per the standard trophy routing — even sweeping every bottle in both campaigns leaves you well short. The gold trophy for learning everything is a New Game+ job, and we'll get to why that specifically means replaying Ellie.

For scale, the first game asked for 800 supplements to max Joel's six skills. Part II more than doubled it and then split the bill across two people.

Ellie's five branches and what they cost

Survival is open from the start. The other four are locked until you find the matching manual.

Survival (220) — Listen Mode Movement Speed I (30), Faster Health Kits (30), Increased Health (60), Listen Mode Movement Speed II (40), Endure (60). Endure is the headline: damage that would kill you instead drops you to a sliver and gives you a chance to run. Increased Health is a flat +25%, Faster Health Kits is +100% bandaging speed.

Crafting (170) — Craft Melee Upgrades (20), Faster Crafting (40), Craft Smoke Bombs (30), Craft Improved Health Kits (40), Craft More Smoke Bombs (40). Faster Crafting is +100% speed, and the crafting menu does not pause the game, so this is a survivability upgrade dressed up as a convenience one. Craft More Smoke Bombs takes you from one per recipe to two and raises the carry cap from three to four.

Stealth (210) — Craft Silencers (20), Listen Mode Clarity (40), Faster Prone Movement (50), Improved Silencers (40), Faster Stealth Kills (60). Silencers start with three shots of durability; Improved Silencers pushes that to five. Faster Stealth Kills is +100% speed and keeps a lower profile, which matters more than it sounds when a patrol is eight feet away.

Precision (180) — Aim Stability Increase (30), Faster Aim Movement (30), Listen Mode Range (40), Hold Breath (40), Craft More Arrows (40). This is the bow branch. Hold Breath while aiming is the one that turns the bow from a gamble into a tool.

Explosives (170) — Craft Explosive Arrows (20), Improved Trap Mines (20), Improved Molotovs (40), Craft More Trap Mines (50), Craft More Explosive Arrows (40). Explosive arrows for twenty supplements is the best-value single purchase in Ellie's entire tree.

Abby's five branches and what they cost

Field Tactics is her starting branch. Same structure, different personality — Abby's tree is built around getting close and hitting things.

Field Tactics (190) — Increased Health (30), Listen Mode Clarity (40), Hold Breath (30), Listen Mode Range (40), Increased Health again as a second rank (50). Two health ranks in the starting branch is why Abby feels tankier than Ellie almost immediately.

Covert Ops (200) — Craft Shivs (20), Listen Mode Movement Speed I (40), Grabbed Enemy Movement Speed (50), Faster Prone Movement (40), Craft More Shivs (50). Read the first entry again. Ellie carries a switchblade permanently; Abby does not. Until Abby learns Craft Shivs she cannot stealth-kill a clicker at all — she has no silent answer to the enemy type that one-shots her. That is the single most consequential locked skill in the game.

Close Quarters (210) — Momentum (40), Craft Improved Health Kits (50), Aim Stability Increase (20), Faster Health Kits (50), Momentum Duration (50). Momentum is Abby's signature: melee kills stack a speed and damage buff, and the second rank extends how long it lasts.

Firearms (180) — Craft Incendiary Shells (20), Craft Hunting Pistol Ammo (20), Faster Aim Movement (40), Craft More Hunting Pistol Ammo (50), Craft More Incendiary Shells (50). Incendiary shells for the double-barrel, plus the ability to manufacture hunting pistol rounds instead of praying for them.

Ordnance (170) — Faster Crafting (20), Improved Melee Weapon Upgrades (40), Improved Pipe Bombs (30), Improved Silencers (40), Craft More Pipe Bombs (40). Cheapest complete branch in the game and it contains Faster Crafting for twenty supplements, which is half what Ellie pays for the identical skill.

All eight training manual locations

Four each, and all eight are in Seattle. Abby's are all in a single chapter.

Ellie — Crafting. Seattle Day 1, the Downtown open area. Inside the Seattle Courthouse, break the window beside the elevators before you drop down into the parking lot. If you've already left the courthouse, there's a second copy by the highway overpass northeast of the 6th Avenue and Marion Street intersection — rope down, swing across, and take it off the overturned truck.

Ellie — Stealth. Seattle Day 1, the Capitol Hill section. In the gas station shortly after the fight where WLF soldiers and runners collide, sitting next to a typewriter by the barricaded windows.

Ellie — Precision. Seattle Day 2, Hillcrest. Go through the Gold Star liquor store, then through the hole in the wall into the children's bookstore next door.

Ellie — Explosives. Seattle Day 2, The Seraphites. Head into the apartment building with the workbench. After you deal with the WLF ambushers, the manual is in the room they came out of.

Abby — Covert Ops. Seattle Day 1, the On Foot section. The warehouse with the suspended sailboat, the one you cross with Mel, Manny and Alice. Use the ladder to get between boats and go into the cabin.

Abby — Close Quarters. Seattle Day 1, in the apartment building opposite the Tangs & Fabrics store — jump through the smashed window, it's on the kitchen counter. Miss it and the game gives you a second shot in the Jasmine Bakery safe, combination 68-96-89.

Abby — Firearms. Seattle Day 1, the Forest section. After the Seraphite brute fight you're funnelled into an auto shop with Lev and Yara. It's on a filing cabinet in the front office.

Abby — Ordnance. Seattle Day 1, The Coast. Inside the beached ship, in a safe, combination 90-77-01. The deck is full of runners, clickers and shamblers, so clear before you dial.

Two of Abby's four sit behind safes as backup or primary. Both codes are in our Part 2 safe codes guide along with the other twelve.

What to buy first as Ellie

The cheap tier is where the value is. Four purchases, 110 supplements total, and they change how the whole Seattle stretch plays:

1. Craft Silencers (20). A silenced pistol is a stealth reset button. Three shots per silencer, and you can toggle it off to save durability.
2. Craft Explosive Arrows (20). Twenty supplements turns your quietest weapon into your loudest. Arrows are recoverable; explosive ones are not, so use them on grouped enemies.
3. Craft Melee Upgrades (20). Restores a melee weapon to full durability and raises its damage. A pipe with a blade taped to it kills a runner in one swing.
4. Faster Crafting (40). Doubles crafting speed while the world keeps moving around you.

After that, save for Increased Health (60) before Endure (60). Endure only helps once per encounter; +25% max health helps constantly. And if you're going in on the bow, Hold Breath (40) does more for your hit rate than Aim Stability does.

Skip Listen Mode Clarity (40) unless you're already comfortable — it makes silhouettes sharper, not the ability stronger.

What to buy first as Abby

Abby's early game is harsher, because her cheapest upgrade is also her most necessary.

1. Craft Shivs (20). Non-negotiable. Without it, every clicker in your path is a loud problem.
2. Faster Crafting (20). Ordnance sells it at half Ellie's price. Take it.
3. Aim Stability Increase (20). Twenty supplements in Close Quarters, and Abby's guns kick harder than Ellie's.
4. Craft Hunting Pistol Ammo (20). The hunting pistol is a headshot machine that starves without this.
5. Momentum (40). Once you've got the basics, this is what makes Abby's brawling loop work — kill in melee, get faster and hit harder, chain into the next one.

Then push Increased Health, both ranks, for 80. Abby fights in the open more than Ellie does; you'll eat damage whether you plan to or not.

Grounded quietly rewrites the trees

Every difficulty from Very Light up through Survivor shares one tree layout. Grounded uses a different one, and it isn't just a price adjustment.

Listen mode is off on Grounded, so every listen-mode upgrade is removed outright. What's clever is what happens to the leftover budget: the surviving skills get repriced so the branch total stays identical.

• Survival loses both Listen Mode Movement Speed ranks and gains Craft Improved Health Kits, promoted out of Crafting. New prices: 40 / 60 / 50 / 70. Still 220.
• Stealth loses Listen Mode Clarity, and the remaining four go 20 / 60 / 60 / 70. Still 210.
• Precision loses Listen Mode Range, remaining four at 30 / 30 / 60 / 60. Still 180.
• Explosives is untouched — five upgrades, 170.
• Crafting is the only branch whose total actually moves. It gives up Craft Improved Health Kits to Survival and drops to four upgrades for 160, making it the cheapest complete branch anywhere in the game.

Net effect: Ellie's Grounded tree is 21 upgrades and 940 supplements rather than 25 and 950. Abby's Close Quarters gets the same treatment — Craft Improved Health Kits disappears and the other four are repriced to the same 210 — so plan on her losing a skill or two as well. The numbers listed for Abby earlier in this guide are the Very Light through Survivor set.

If you're heading that way, read the Grounded mode guide first and the difficulty modes breakdown second.

Trophies worth planning around

Five trophies hang off this system:

Specialist is the one to aim at deliberately. The cheapest complete branch is 170 — Ellie's Crafting, Ellie's Explosives, or Abby's Ordnance — and on Grounded, Ellie's Crafting is 160. Pick one early and finish it rather than spreading supplements evenly and owning nothing.

Survival Expert wants all fifty at once, and that's where New Game+ comes in. Since Ellie and Abby bank separately and a single run doesn't fund 1,900, the standard route is a second pass through Ellie's Seattle days — which means playing roughly half the game again before Abby is even playable. New Game+ carries your skills, recipes and weapon mods forward, though your gun collection doesn't reappear until Ellie reaches Seattle.

One piece of history worth knowing if you're mid-run on a PS5 save: Patch 2.0.0 for Part II Remastered wiped campaign unlockables — extra weapon holsters and skill points — out of people's saves in April 2025. Naughty Dog shipped Patch 2.0.1 to restore them, but only for saves created before April 3, 2025 at 10am PT. Anything banked between the two patches could still be lost. If you're on an old save and something looks missing, that's probably why, and it isn't something you did wrong.

Quick Action Checklist

• Grab the Crafting manual in the Seattle Courthouse before dropping into the parking lot. The backup copy is at the 6th and Marion overpass.
• Buy Craft Shivs the moment Abby's Covert Ops branch opens. She cannot stealth-kill a clicker without it.
• Spend Ellie's first 60 supplements on Craft Silencers, Craft Explosive Arrows and Craft Melee Upgrades — 20 each, and all three change encounters.
• Faster Crafting costs Abby 20 in Ordnance and Ellie 40 in Crafting. Buy it on both.
• Commit to one branch for the Specialist trophy. 170 is the floor, or 160 on Grounded Crafting.
• Don't split supplements evenly across branches. A finished branch beats five half-finished ones.
• Open the Jasmine Bakery safe (68-96-89) and the Coast ship safe (90-77-01) — each holds one of Abby's branch manuals.
• On Grounded, ignore anything you read about listen-mode upgrades. They don't exist in that tree.
• Full completion is 1,900 supplements across two separate wallets. Plan for New Game+ from the start.
• If a PS5 save lost holsters or skill points after April 2025, that's the 2.0.0 patch bug, not you.