Anime Zero Skill Tree: Attack, Crit, Defense or Speed?

Which skill-tree branch should you consider first?

Both creators start with attack, then choose different follow-up upgrades. Ashira RBX favors damage and critical upgrades, with defense if you are losing too much health. D1SGUISED puts attack first, usually movement second, and critical chance after that. His preference comes partly from enjoying faster travel through dungeon maps.

This is a useful disagreement: the second purchase depends on the problem you are trying to solve. A player surviving every fight but taking too long to clear has a different need from someone repeatedly losing at the boss.

What do the ATK, CRIT, DEF and SPD columns mean?

The reviewed interface separates attack, critical, defense and speed upgrades into four columns. Ashira’s narration identifies those roles, and the screenshot shows the matching labels along the bottom. Select a node and read its tooltip rather than buying by icon alone; later nodes can have different requirements from earlier ones.

Screenshot: Ashira RBX, 1:31 in the October 1 guide. The selected tooltip says Attack II and displays +15% attack damage; this is not a screenshot of the first node on a fresh account.

Column	Question to ask before buying
ATK	Are ordinary enemies taking too long to defeat?
CRIT	Is this the creator’s suggested damage follow-up for the build you are using?
DEF	Are you losing runs to damage before reaching the finish?
SPD	Is moving between packs the part you want to improve?

These questions are editorial guidance for choosing what to investigate. They are not measured damage-per-token rankings.

Why doesn’t everyone put speed second?

D1SGUISED values movement speed more than Ashira does in the reviewed advice. He explicitly describes himself as a movement-speed fan and says critical chance could move into second place depending on priorities. Ashira instead mentions critical upgrades early and includes defense as a practical response to losing health.

Screenshot: D1SGUISED, 5:14 in the October 6 guide. Speed V is a later-node tooltip, not the benefit of every speed purchase.

D1SGUISED’s preference makes sense as his personal route. It does not make defense useless: a quicker trip between rooms cannot by itself answer why you died to a boss attack. Likewise, Ashira’s critical recommendation is not evidence that it beats movement for every weapon and mode.

How can you choose without copying a full build?

Write down what happened in the last run, then change one thing. Use the creators’ suggestions as candidates rather than buying across every branch at once. Keep the weapon, stage and difficulty the same for your comparison so a different dungeon does not disguise the effect of the upgrade.

Last-run problem	Candidate to inspect	What to compare next run
Survived, but regular packs took too long	ATK, then the relevant critical tooltip	Time spent fighting a similar pack
Repeatedly died near the end	DEF plus your approach to enemy attacks	Where health was lost and whether you finished
Comfortable fights, slow room traversal	SPD	Travel time between comparable packs
Changed weapons and now feel weaker	Equipped weapon and its skill-tree state	Weapon identity, available tokens and purchased nodes

Neither source establishes a respec price or refund policy here. Read the current client before spending as though every choice can be undone. For loadout checks, see the second-weapon-slot guide; for wider equipment context, use the equipment comparison.

What still needs checking in the current game?

The recorded tooltips establish what those screens showed, not today’s complete skill system. We still need a fresh-account check of the first available node, token acquisition, reset behavior, and the effect of purchasing a node on each equipped weapon. Do not turn the Attack II screenshot into a claim that every attack node adds the same bonus.

The AFK guide explains why dated screenshots need the same care for resource planning. If you are short on resources, review the codes page without assuming an old video’s rewards are still available.

Where do these recommendations come from?

Ashira’s skill-tree segment runs from 1:27 to 2:01; D1SGUISED’s runs from 5:02 to 5:45. Watch them to hear the reasoning behind each preference. The article preserves their disagreement instead of presenting a combined order as something both players tested.