Levels come pretty slowly in Arc Raiders, and you receive only one skill point per level up. With this in mind, you’ll want to make the absolute most out of your limited skill points to ensure that you’re ready to take on all of the ARC and potential raiders you’ll encounter topside. While there really aren’t any wrong answers to filling out your skill tree, there are some skills that provide substantial improvements to your mobility, looting, and crafting. Later in the game, you’ll likely want to branch out into some other utility options, too, but we’ve compiled the eight best skills we think you should grab first in Arc Raiders.
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Marathon Runner
Pre-requisite skill: Nimble Climber
Stamina drains quickly when you’re running, vaulting, jumping, or dodging. Because of this, it’s important to pump points into Marathon Runner, which reduces how much stamina is drained by your movement.
Youthful Lungs
Pre-requisite skills: Nimble Climber, Marathon Runner
After snagging Marathon Runner, you can improve your mobility even further with Youthful Lungs, which vastly improves how much stamina you have. This extra stamina can make the difference between getting to cover during a firefight and being shot down and losing all of your hard-earned loot.
Sturdy Ankles
Pre-requisite skills: Nimble Climber, Slip and Slide
Keeping with the trend of mobility, Sturdy Ankles is a good option to put at least a point or two in early. This will reduce how much damage you take from non-lethal falls, meaning you can drop down to areas below you with less fear of losing a big chunk of health.
Calming Stroll
Pre-requisite skills: Nimble Climber, Slip and Slide, Sturdy Ankles
The best large node to grab early from the Mobility tree is Calming Stroll. With this skill, you’ll regenerate stamina at the same pace as standing still, even when you’re walking. As with other mobility-base skills, this can make all the difference when crossing long distances or escaping danger.
Looter’s Instincts
Pre-requisite skills: Agile Croucher
Arc Raiders is all about stocking up on loot as efficiently as possible, then extracting safely. Looter’s Instincts speeds up the pace at which items populate within the looting menu while you’re searching. This can be especially helpful when you need to loot something very quickly before an enemy spots you–or when you’re competing for loot with other greedy little loot goblins (see: your friends).
Revitalizing Squat
Pre-requisite skills: Agile Croucher
Things can get wild during firefights, and you’ll often need to sprint from cover to cover to avoid being knocked out by gunfire or explosions. Because of this, it’s important to have Revitalizing Squat, which improves your stamina recovery while squating. With this skill, you can squat behind cover to regenerate stamina quickly before sprinting somewhere new.
In-Round Crafting
Pre-requisite skills: Agile Croucher, Revitalizing Squat
You can prepare for a raid really well and still find yourself low on resources after a wild shootout or a series of mishaps. That’s why having In-Round Crafting is so cool, as it lets you open a crafting menu and use any materials you’ve amassed in your current run to create useful items, such as healing resources or grenades.
Three Deep Breaths
Pre-requisite skills: Agile Croucher, Revitalizing Squat, In-Round Crafting, Good as New, Stubborn Mule
Circling back once more to stamina, the Survival tree contains one of the best improvements to this resource. Three Deep Breaths requires you to invest a good chunk of skill points to reach, but it’s an immensely helpful skill that helps you recover stamina more quickly after performing actions that deplete it. Combined with the Mobility tree’s various stamina-based upgrades, you’ll be able to sprint and slide around the map like the raider you were born to be.
