The skill tree in Arc Raiders allows you to buff your character, as long as you have the necessary skill points. There are 157 possible skill tree upgrades across the three paths, but with a max level cap of 75 and only one skill point per level, you won’t be able to obtain even half of what’s available.
You can technically respec when you unlock expeditions, but it’s not as simple as just pressing a button to regain your points. Picking the best skills is imperative for your build the first time around, lest you’re stuck with suboptimal choices.
Below, we’ve listed some of the best skills to unlock in the Arc Raiders skill tree in no particular order, and how to respec your skills.
In-Round Crafting and Traveling Tinkerer (Survival)
The first skill you should absolutely aim for is In-Round Crafting, the third skill in the second Survival tree branch. You can unlock this at level three, if you invest one point apiece into Agile Croucher and Revitalizing Squat first.
It’s very self-explanatory, but it essentially allows you to craft certain items while topside, provided you have the materials. Engaged in more combat than you expected? Run out of ammo or grenades? Simply need to free up some inventory space? Craft some items and save your run to ensure you can extract.
Along very similar lines, once you’ve invested 15 points into the survival tree, you can unlock Traveling Tinkerer. This simply opens up even more field crafting options, increasing your chances of surviving and extracting.
Used To The Weight (Conditioning)
The very first skill in the Conditioning tree, Used To The Weight, means you move quicker when wearing a shield. Since you’d be pretty foolish to venture topside without a shield, who can complain about moving faster at pretty much all times? Invest as many points into this as you feel comfortable, because maxing it out isn’t a bad thing, especially if you need to unlock the next tier of the Conditioning tree.
Proficient Pryer and Gentle Pressure (Conditioning)
Early on, Arc Raiders teaches you that breaching storage items and doors takes time, but more importantly, it makes noise. Noise that other players — and Arc enemies — can hear. The more points you invest into Proficient Pryer and Gentle Pressure respectively, the safer you’re going to be when breaching, because they both speed it up and make it quieter.
Marathon Runner and Youthful Lungs (Mobility)
The Mobility tree is definitely the weakest of the three, so there aren’t too many strong options here, but both Marathon Runner and Youthful Lungs work in tandem with each other. There will be times you’ll need to flee, and with the former reducing the stamina cost of moving around and the latter increasing your max stamina altogether, you increase your chances of both getting away from enemies and hightailing it to an extraction point before it closes.
Back On Your Feet (Conditioning)
Now we’re looking at some late-game skills, Back On Your Feet requires a total of 36 points in the Conditioning tree, so you need to seriously invest to grab it. It can often be the difference between life and death though, as it auto-regenerates health when you’re critically injured. Not all the way, so you’ll still need some healing items, but if you’re being shot by Arc enemies and need to take cover from them, you can re-engage without having to use up your own resources.
Broad Shoulders (Survival)
If you play Arc Raiders by heading topside, looting as much as possible, then escaping without engaging in much combat, chances are you don’t suffer from overencumbrance too often. If you’re a PvPer though and you’re often plucking shields, augments, and weapons from the corpses of other players, you’ll quickly find yourself needing to shed some weight due to the sheer quantity of items you’ve picked up.
Broad Shoulders, very simply, increases the maximum weight you can carry while topside. A godsend for the hoarders amongst us.
Security Breach (Survival)
Ever stumbled upon a locked container that you can’t breach because it says you require Security Breach? These have some seriously high-tier loot behind them, but you need to invest 36 points into Survival before you can unlock this skill. It’s worth it though, arguably more so than Back On Your Feet if you’re set on having the best equipment in the game.
How to respec skills in Arc Raiders
The ability to reset your skills — or respec, as it’s known in other games — doesn’t unlock in Arc Raiders until level 20. However, it’s not as simple as pressing one button to refund all of your skill points. Instead, you’re given the option of resetting your entire character, which comes in lieu of the game performing global wipes.
This comes in the form of expeditions, which is described in-game as constructing a caravan “to send your raider off on an expedition beyond the Rust Belt.” You must complete a series of tasks, acquiring different resources and items, before you can embark on an expedition and reset your character.
Expeditions work in eight-week windows though, so once you’ve completed the tasks, you then only have a week to confirm your departure. After this point is when your character will reset, and you’ll receive a plethora of buffs, including increased XP gain for your “new” character, more stash space, bonus skill points, and more.
However, you’ll lose pretty much all of your progress aside from cosmetics and achievements. This includes:
- Character level
- All items
- Skill points
- Workshop and Scrappy upgrades
Is it worth it? We’ll let you decide, but if you plan on playing Arc Raiders for a long time to come, or you desperately want to respec your skills, it’s recommended.
Want to train Scrappy? Learn where to find a dog collar, and where to find lemons and apricots, as you’ll need both for the first two levels.
