In The Outer Worlds 2, there are a total of 12 skills. Your skills decide how strong you can be in the galaxy. All skills have different purposes, and you cannot have all of them. Some skills make you better in combat, while others help in exploring hidden areas. With 12 total skills to choose from, it’s important to know where to spend your skill points wisely. In this The Outer Worlds 2 Best Skills Guide, we will see some of the best early-game skills and how to unlock them.
Best Skill Guide – The Outer Worlds 2
Read on below to find more about some of the skills that we found to be better than the others.
How to Unlock New Skills
Each time you level up in The Outer Worlds 2, you will earn two new skill points. When you first create your character, you need to pick two specialized skills. Unlike regular skills, these special ones can go one point higher than your actual level.
Best Skills to Unlock First
It is smarter to focus on a few skills instead of spreading your points everywhere. This makes it easier to pass skill checks. In this guide, we will discuss these 12 skills by type, from best to worst within each category.
| Skills Type | Skills Name | Description |
|
Combat Skills |
Guns | This is your top choice for early combat. Guns boost both your ranged damage and armor penetration, making it easier to take down enemies fast. You can have short-range shotguns and long-range rifles in the game with way more damage. It has a +10% Ranged Damage and +1% Armor Penetration per level. |
| Sneak | If you prefer a stealthy approach, Sneak is the best choice. It increases your sneak attack damage and makes it harder for enemies to detect you. Although sneaking can make quests take a bit longer to end. With it, you have a 35% increase in sneak damage per skill point. It also has a -2% NPC Awareness Detection Rate per level. | |
| Explosives | Explosives boost your grenade damage by 10% per skill point, making it easy to wipe out enemies. Keep an eye on your crafting materials and use vending machines or workbenches early in the game for new and more explosives. It also has a +1% Damage Resistance per level. | |
| Speech | Speech helps you deal more damage to human enemies. Since you’ll often fight other humans rather than creatures or robots, this can actually be very useful in battles. | |
| Medical | It has a +7 Toxicity Crash Threshold and +5% Damage to Creatures per level. | |
| Melee | Melee weapons are less commonly used as compared to Guns, because the Outer World is more inclined towards gunfight. It has a +10% Melee Damage and -2% Damage Received while Blocking per level. | |
|
Exploration Skills |
Hacking | Hacking is one of the most useful skills for exploration. It lets you access locked terminals, security systems, and private circuits throughout the game. You will also deal extra damage against automechs enemies, and with the Restricted Access perk, you’ll get extra items from vending machines. It has a +5% Damage to Automechs per level. |
| Lockpick | Without Lockpick, you will constantly run into locked doors and containers that you can’t open. In restricted areas full of loot, Lockpick is used more frequently than Engineering, which only helps with jammed doors. It also unlocks the Pickpocket perk, which lets you steal ammo. It has a +1% Evasion Chance per level.
|
|
| Engineering | It helps you to repair machines and systems up to your skill level. Gain a +1% Damage Resistance per level against every repair. It is less frequently used as compared to Lockpick. | |
| Science! | It has a +7 Maximum Gadget Energy and +10% more non-Physical Damage side effects per level. | |
|
Dialogue Skills |
Speech | This skill opens the most unique dialogue options in the game. It also adds a small bonus of 5% increasing damage against human enemies.
|
| Observation | This skill also unlocks unique dialogue options, making it the best alternative to Speech. It also increases your weak point damage by 15% per skill point, meaning headshots on people and creatures, or hitting glowing parts on mechs. You will need good aim to really take advantage of this bonus.
|
|
| Leadership | Leadership also gives you unique dialogue options, but only a few as compared to Speech or Observation. It boosts your companions’ health and attack power. It has a +8% Companion Damage and +4% Companion Health per level. |
It is important to note that you don’t specifically have to select these skills as written above. It is entirely your choice to decide which one to choose, according to your gameplay and experience. These are the ones that we found to be the best in the game.
That is all for this guide. Additional The Outer Worlds 2 guides are listed below:
- The Outer Worlds 2 Beginner’s Guide – Tips and Tricks to Kickstart Your Adventure
- The Outer Worlds 2 Companions Guide – How to Get All Companions
This concludes our The Outer Worlds 2 Best Skills Guide. Let us know which skills work the best for you in the comments section below.
