Sooo, this is my time first updating tails. Is it advised to backup your persistence/usb before undergoing the update? I have all my important info written down just in case anything goes haywire. So am i good to go with the update or should i backup my tails usb first?
Yes.
Upgrades usually go smoothly, but can fail occasionally. Also, upgrades do a lot of writes to your USB. If your USB drive is on the verge of failure, an upgrade could push it over the edge.
If you are a Windows user, you can use this program to make a backup image of your entire Tails USB including persistence:
http://www.alexpage.de/usb-image-tool/download/
You could also create an encrypted volume on a 2nd USB and copy your important files to it:
https://tails.boum.org/doc/encryption_and_privacy/encrypted_volumes/index.en.html