Resident Evil 9 Requiem: The Ultimate Leon Must Die Forever Ability Tier List

The Ability Enhancer in Resident Evil 9's free Leon Must Die Forever DLC hands out perks every 100 points, and some of them will get you killed faster than the zombies will.

You start this mode with basically nothing. Basic gear, no safety net, and a slow trickle of points from every enemy you put down. Every 100 points earned trips the Ability Enhancer, and it's a coin flip whether what pops out helps you or actively wrecks your run. You can spend 20 points to reroll a bad option, and knowing when that's worth it matters more than people give it credit for. If your fundamentals aren't there yet, my Resident Evil Requiem Leon Must Die Forever tips piece is worth a read before diving into this. Otherwise, here's the breakdown after way too many runs.

S-Tier: Take These On Sight

Four abilities sit above everything else, and none of them come with a real downside worth worrying about.

Scatter Shot stacks a flat firepower increase per shot up to a 60% cap. Run anything fast-firing, a machine gun or a tuned-up pistol, and you'll hit that ceiling in one messy firefight. Practically speaking, this is what lets you actually put down the bullet-sponge enemies that show up in the later stages without burning your entire ammo reserve on one target.

Phantom Assassin doubles your firepower outright. The tradeoff is a 50% cut to melee damage, but if you're already playing this mode the smart way, keeping range and letting your gun do the work, that penalty barely registers. You're deleting standard infected before they close the gap anyway.

Unyielding Judge only kicks in when you're near death, and that's exactly when you want it. Thirty seconds of a 150% attack boost, zero ammo or durability cost, and kills that explode. It's the panic button that replaces burning through your entire med kit stash the moment things go sideways.

Parry Recovery restores 40% of your max hatchet durability on a perfect parry. If your timing's any good, your hatchet effectively stops breaking, which matters more than it sounds since a snapped hatchet leaves you with nothing when a hoard corners you.

A-Tier: Great, But They Ask Something Of You

These pull real weight, but only if you're actually playing to what they want.

Streamlined rewards a clean inventory with a passive damage buff. Ditch the low-tier weapons, combine herbs early, keep your case tidy, and the payoff scales up nicely. It's basically free damage for doing inventory management you should be doing anyway.

Sharpshooter punishes body shots and rewards headshots and weak points, which you should already be aiming for. If your aim's actually good, this is a straight upgrade. If you've been spraying center mass, this ability will expose that fast.

Proximity Boost and Tough Stuff are a package deal for shotgun-and-aggression builds. Proximity Boost's 60% damage spike up close hits hard, and Tough Stuff covers the physical damage you'll eat from playing that close. Just watch for gun or explosive enemies specifically, since that combo doesn't protect you from either.

B-Tier: Situational, Not Bad

Nothing here is unusable, but each one demands a specific build to actually pay off.

Bloodshot gives an 80% firepower boost but bites back 10% of dealt damage as recoil damage to you. Pair it with Soul Sucker for lifesteal on kills and it becomes genuinely strong. Without a healing loop backing it up, you'll kill yourself faster than the zombies will.

Axe the Axe trades your hatchet, and with it your main parry defense, for a 60% gun damage boost while it's unequipped. Only take this if your dodging is reliable enough to cover for losing your parry option entirely.

Amped Up makes you briefly invincible when using a recovery item. Handy for pushing through a packed hallway or ignoring an annoying boss mechanic for a few seconds, but building a strategy around taking damage on purpose so you can heal into invincibility is a rough habit in a mode this punishing.

Chronos Shot adds three seconds to the clock on a kill, but only a 20% chance to actually trigger. Too unreliable to plan around when you need the extra time most. If clock management is your issue, my Leon Must Die Forever challenges guide covers that without relying on a coin flip.

Reroll These Immediately

Spending 20 points to shuffle the machine beats holding onto any of these three.

• Gathering Boost: 40% faster collector fill rate sounds useful until you clock the 20% attack power cut that comes with it. Enemies scale up every stage, so trading damage for a resource bump just gets you overwhelmed faster. You can't spend points if you're dead.

• Deadeye: 50% damage boost while scoped, 30% penalty otherwise. That forces tunnel vision in a mode where threats come from every direction, and losing peripheral awareness just to keep your baseline damage is a bad trade.

• Blazing Kick: sets zombies on fire when kicked, which looks neat and does almost nothing. Your kick exists for crowd control, not damage, and the burn effect isn't scaling with anything that matters in the later stages.

Building a Run That Actually Survives

Stick to S-Tier and A-Tier whenever the machine offers them, keep your inventory clean since Streamlined rewards it directly, and don't be afraid to spend the 20 points on a reroll the second Gathering Boost, Deadeye, or Blazing Kick show up. This mode punishes bad upgrade choices harder than it punishes bad aim, so the Ability Enhancer is honestly the real boss fight here.