Skill Tree Guide
Your skill tree is persistent across every raid — it defines your baseline movement, resilience, and looting capability. 76 points. Three trees. Choose wisely.
How the Skill Tree Works
Persistent, Not Per-Raid
Your skill tree carries into every single raid automatically. You choose your weapons, augment, and gear before each drop — but your skills are always active. They represent your character's permanent physical capabilities.
Spend Freely Across Trees
You can split points however you like between all three trees. The only restriction is the per-tree point threshold for unlocking higher-tier skills: you need 15 points in a tree to access Tier 2 skills, and 36 points for the capstone.
Resetting Skills
You can respec individual points for 2,000 Coins each (~152,000 for a full reset). Completing an Expedition (voluntary prestige wipe) also resets your skill tree and grants up to 5 permanent bonus skill points based on your stash value at departure.
Mobility
Movement, traversal, and stamina management. The most impactful tree for every build — invest here first.
Moving around costs less stamina. The single highest-impact skill in the game — max this first on any build.
S-TierIncreases your maximum stamina pool. More stamina means more sprinting, rolling, and climbing before you're forced to stop.
S-TierDodge rolls cost less stamina. Essential for aggressive PvP players who rely on dodge rolls in combat.
A-TierRegenerates stamina while walking. Keeps you mobile during looting or repositioning without standing completely still.
A-TierClimb and vault faster. Good for traversal speed and keeping pace in fights across uneven terrain.
B-TierReduces fall damage from non-lethal heights. Useful if you frequently drop from elevated positions.
B-TierSlide further and faster. Makes slide-canceling and evasive movement more effective in open areas.
B-TierWhen downed, you crawl faster. Situational — more valuable in squad play where teammates can revive you.
C-TierAfter a Sprint Dodge Roll, sprinting costs no stamina for a short time. One of the best movement skills in the game — enables near-infinite sprint uptime with good timing.
S-TierVaulting is no longer slowed when your stamina is depleted. Keeps you moving at full speed even when exhausted.
A-TierSprint Dodge Roll goes further. Extends your dodge distance for escaping engagements or crossing gaps.
A-TierWall Leap is extended. Increases the distance and height of wall jumps for advanced traversal.
B-TierWhen falling, your timing window to perform a Recovery Roll is increased. Reduces fall damage with good reaction time.
B-TierLets you jump at the end of a vault. Opens up new movement paths and can catch enemies off-guard.
B-TierVaulting no longer costs any stamina. Combined with Vigorous Vaulter, this makes you essentially unlimited in traversal through vaultable terrain.
A-TierConditioning
Combat survivability, shield interaction, and breaching. Best secondary investment for PvP players.
The weight of all your equipped weapons is halved. Essential if you carry two heavy weapons — the single best Conditioning skill for most builds.
S-TierIf your shield breaks, your first Dodge Roll within a few seconds costs no stamina. Activates automatically — a lifesaver when you're caught in a bad spot.
S-TierWearing a shield doesn't slow you down as much. Lets you run shields without the movement penalty — pairs well with Loaded Arms.
A-TierWhen hurt in combat, regain a fixed amount of stamina. Most useful when maxed (5/5) since each hit grants a bigger stamina spike for escaping.
B-TierWhen critically hurt, your stamina regenerates faster. Helps you escape dangerous situations when you're almost dead.
B-TierWhen downed, it takes longer before you collapse. Buys time for teammates to revive you. Squad play only.
B-TierReduces the sound range of breaching doors and opening crates by ~4 meters per rank (up to 20m at max). Good for stealth-focused players.
B-TierSignificantly increases the speed of breaching doors and opening crates (~1/3 faster at max rank). Useful for rapid looting and pushing locked rooms.
B-TierYour hearing is less affected by nearby explosions. Niche — only relevant if you regularly face grenade spam in PvP.
D-TierSurvival
Looting speed, carry capacity, crafting, and utility. Go deep here for the Security Breach capstone.
Items are revealed significantly faster when searching a container. Less time in looting animation = less time being vulnerable. High value for any playstyle.
S-TierChance to reveal twice as many items at once when looting (~25–33% trigger rate at max). Effectively increases loot yield per container.
A-TierIncreases your maximum carry weight (+2 kg per rank, +10 kg at 5/5). Lets you haul more loot without stamina penalties from over-encumbrance.
A-TierStamina regeneration is less affected when over-encumbered. Pairs with Broad Shoulders to let you move reasonably even when fully loaded.
A-TierUnlocks the ability to craft items while topside: bandages, shield rechargers, traps, grenades, and hatch keys. Opens up self-sufficient solo playstyles.
B-TierUnlocks additional field craft items including medical supplies. Requires In-Round Crafting. Makes you essentially self-sufficient for healing mid-raid.
B-TierYou make less noise when looting. Useful in areas with high player traffic — reduces the risk of being heard while opening containers.
B-TierMines and explosive deployables can be defused from close proximity. Niche but valuable if you encounter trap-heavy player setups.
B-TierAllows you to breach Security Lockers, which contain premium high-tier loot. The primary reason to invest heavily in the Survival tree — Security Lockers have some of the best loot in the game.
CapstoneRecommended Skill Allocations
These are starting points — adjust based on your playstyle. You can respec for ~2,000 Coins per point.
Aggressive PvP
Balanced Raid
Looter / Security Breach
Solo Survival
General Tips
Always start with Marathon Runner
5 points into Marathon Runner is the single best investment in the entire game regardless of your target build. Do this before anything else.
Respeccing is cheap
At 2,000 Coins per point, a 10-point respec costs 20,000 Coins — very affordable. Experiment freely and adjust as you learn which skills actually matter to your playstyle.
Loaded Arms is almost always worth it
Even if you're not building Conditioning, 5 points in Loaded Arms is often worth it if you run two weapons that together exceed the weight limit.
36 pts to unlock capstones
Security Breach (Survival) and the Conditioning capstone both need 36 points in their tree. Decide early if you're committing to either — they require significant investment.
Expedition grants permanent bonus points
Completing an Expedition (voluntary reset) grants up to 5 permanent bonus skill points based on stash value. After one Expedition with max reward, you have 81 base points — enough to fill one full tree.
Community skill builders
Plan your build before spending points using arcraiders.build or ARC Raiders Hub — both have interactive skill tree planners.